Blank Check with Griffin & David - Alien³ with Matt Singer

Episode Date: September 10, 2023

The time has come for us to talk about one of the most successful, most influential, most respected American filmmakers of the past 30 years. That’s right, we’re talking about the director of ALIEN3, David “Da Finchman” Fincher! We’re kicking off “The Curious Pod of Benjamin Buttcast” in style, pressing play on our Alien Quadrilogy Blu-Ray with guest Matt Singer - and you better believe we’re watching the “extended cut” in “Mu-th-ur Mode”! Join us as we give some light background on young “Dave” Fincher, alleged neighbor of George Lucas and director of Madonna music videos and smoking fetus PSAs. We’re going long on the troubled production of ALIEN 3 - a franchise film that has such disdain for its audience that we can’t help but love and respect it. No Newt? NO PROBLEMO. Do you want to do the dance with Charles Dance? So do we! Guest Links:  Pre-order Matt’s Book “Opposable Thumbs” This episode is sponsored by:  Firstleaf (tryfirstleaf.com/check) Indeed (indeed.com/check) Mubi (mubi.com/blankcheck) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

Why? Why are the innocent punished? Why the sacrifice? Why the pain? There aren't any promises, nothing certain. Only that some get called, some get saved. She won't ever know the hardship and grief for those of us left behind. We commit these bodies to the void with a glad heart. For within each seed, there is a promise of a flower. And within each death, no matter how small, there is always a new podcast, a new beginning. Amen.

Sometimes I'll watch the quote as you read it. And I'm kind of like, he's running out of words to throw in podcasts. I know exactly where to put it. I figured you did. Yeah. You're wearing sort of his glasses right now. He's kind of got those Griffey glasses on. Yeah, Charles S. Sutton in this movie, huge Griffin Newman vibes.

Major Griffey energy i just watched it and i went it's so nice to see myself reflected on screen just kind of have a god can we just all fucking stop fighting energy sometimes which is sort of griffin it would manifest very differently i think coming out of me out of you you don't think people would just like shut up and listen to you immediately what undeniable command he has of this room a bunch of hardened convicts wouldn't be like oh okay okay yeah this is like such an astonishing performance from him love him where every time i watch this i'm just like this is kind of like one of the great supporting performances period i mean i feel like you are okay so jeez we need to acknowledge i I need to have some gravitas here because, of course, this is the start of a new miniseries.

But, of course, we've covered this film. There's a lot of things to set up here. Because we did do alien commentaries in the pandemic. What even is this, David? What is this? But I just want to say, I just remember your reverence for Dutton then, and it clearly endures now.

Right. That's all. At times, I have thought he might be and this is boiling hot and I don't know if I stand by this today but I at least think it's in the conversation. The best performance in any Alien movie.

You think this is the best performance? I think it's in the conversation. You think you want to have that conversation? What about Sigourney Weaver? I was going to say, I think Sigourney Weaver is the nice performance i think in this movie i i agree that i think you kind of gotta give it to her but i think if you if you remove ripley if you go non-ripley okay okay so sort of like who's your favorite simpsons character that's not in the simpson family and a franchise with incredible performances in

basically every movie if we're not counting the Vs, if we're counting proper Alien. Yeah, I mean, I probably have a few people ahead of Dutton, but just a, yeah, it's an excellent performer. Right. Each of these movies has basically at least two slam dunk supporting performances, right? It's a good showcase for exactly that. Right. And Resurrection's the weakest of them. And even still, you're like, Perlman's kind of on fire in that right and resurrection's the weakest of them and even

still you're like pearlman's kind of on fire in that movie what were you expecting well the most normal relaxed i don't know if you remember i definitely know how to speak english i haven't seen it in a little while dominique pignon who i do believe basically was just phonetically reading a lot of his lines yeah they put peanut butter in his mouth. Reading Joss Whedon's, you know, verbose witticisms at one point says, what were you expecting, Santa Claus? Except he says,

what were you expecting, Santa Claus? He just doesn't know what he's saying. His character's in like a bionic wheelchair, right? And the bit is that there's like a thumping from the other side of the door

and everyone's like prepped with their guns and they think the alien's going to come through and the doors open up and they're all like, whoo. And then he says that line, which is supposed to be kind of a Whedon throwaway. And he does say like, what were you expecting, Santa Claus? What were you expecting, Santa Claus? Obviously, this is not from the film we're discussing. No, the film.

Not relevant. Listen, let me get a bunch of stuff right out of the way. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It is a podcast about filmography. It's directors who experience massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, this is start of a new miniseries, recovering the films of David Fincher. It is called The Curious of benjamin butt cast that's right you're damn right it is furious pod of benjamin butt cast there was some initial oh the curious like a pod of Benjamin Caston or something? I don't know. You could do an obvious, the curious cast. That was it.

Right. I mean, it's one letter. Benjamin Podden or whatever. And you were like, butt cast. Butt cast. I was like, butt cast. Butt cast. Yes, indeed.

Butt cast. Yes, welcome to the curious pod of Benjamin Buttcast. I could say that. Who were you expecting? Benjaminious Pod of Benjamin Buttcast. I could say that. Who were you expecting? Benjamin Buttcast? Benjamin Buttcast! What's that guy doing? Dominic Pignon?

I think he's still in the Jeunet movies that no one watches anymore. He hasn't done a movie since 2015. Really? Oh, no, I'm sorry. That was TV. He does more movies. He's working. Yeah, he's 68 years old.

One of the all-time great ponoms. But he was certainly in T.S. Bivet. Yes. That Genet movie? Yes, and he was in Micmacs. Was he in Micmacs? Was he in Micmacs? Yes, I was in Micmacs.

He's done nine films with Jean-Pierre Genet. Wasn't he in Tell No One? What word are you saying? What was the word you just said? He was in some fucking French thriller That had like crossover success here in the States Tell No One? That's what I'm questioning

I'm not seeing Tell No One He was in something What were you expecting? What were you expecting? I love that guy Do you like that guy? Tony Pino? I know we're here to talk about Venture and Alien 3 But do you like that guy don't you i know we're here

to talk about fincher and alien 3 but do you like jean-pierre jeunesse films of the 90s let's slap down a quick 30 minutes on pinwheel delicatessen's really good that holds up i watch it in the pandemic because i was trying to do like sort of dystopia movies i think for some list or whatever and it's a great dystopia movie. Have you rewatched Amelie? You know what? Not in years. That's a movie that has only grown in my mind. I was a cynical teenager about it

when it came out. And I was like, I'm smarter than this movie and I don't need whimsy in my life or whatever. And later, I have sort of just been like, well, that movie is beautiful. Like, visually. So beautiful. I'm very curious how it would play for me. I rewatch.

I was a whimsical teenager who loved it. How do you feel about Amelie, Matt? We're going to introduce you. Don't worry. Okay. No, it's fine. I should be anonymous the whole time. I don't care.

No, no, no. Absolutely not. I also have not seen it in decades, perhaps. Like 20 years, probably. It's been a while. Amelie. That is a great point, though, perhaps. Like 20 years, probably. It's been a while. That is a great point, though, David. We have a guest on today

who is not part of SAG or WGA and thus can promote his upcoming works. Like crazy. That's right. And I assume you will be promoting like crazy. Every possible chance. Introduce our guest.

Our guest, returning to the show, the author of the upcoming Opposable Thumbs That's right Matt Singer He's reaching into his book He's reaching into his book What does he have here? A copy of Opposable Thumbs

Very nice looking copy This is a video, right? So everyone can see the cover right now Perfect, I'll leave it right there What is the actual release date of Opposable Thumbs? October 24th Okay, so it's out in about a month from now. Yes.

But you can pre-order it, which I know is very crucial to the success of books. Yeah, especially mine. Especially yours? As far as I'm concerned, it's especially important. It's most important to pre-order your book. Exactly. Right, right, right. That's the message we're getting across here today.

So you are here with us, Matt. To talk about the podcast. No, oh, sorry. Sorry. Yes. The thing we're trying to set up here is new miniseries, Fincher. David Fincher. On our Patreon. The filmmaker David Fincher.

Blank check special features. Yeah. We focus on film series and franchises rather than directors. Yeah. As our sort of grouping. The Venn diagrams overlap. Sometimes. We try to pick franchises

that maybe don't have one strong auteur throughout all of them because those are the kinds of things we usually like to keep for main feed. So we did in 2020 a perfect year.

One of the all-time best years. A great year with no issues. Yes. Put it on the Mount Rushmore of years. Especially the part, the

later part of the year, which is when we did this. Right. Those first three months, boring. Yes. We're on the Mount Rushmore of years. Especially the part, the later part of the year, which is when we did this. Right. Those first three months, boring. Right. 2020, you know, January, if you're like, nothing's going on. Right. Like, everything seems okay. Our three franchise series were Toy Story, Mission Impossible, and Aliens.

And what did we do after that? After that, I think we may have done Mission, oh, no, you said Mission Impossible. Yeah. I don't know. I can look. Whatever we did after Aliens. I what did we do after that? After that, I think we may have done Mission Impossible. Oh, no, you said Mission Impossible. Yeah. I don't know. I can look. Whatever we did after Aliens. I don't know. But, like, Mission Impossible, Aliens, perfect examples of franchises that have auteurs, but

do not have one definitive director. We, of course, checked in with our pal, Mr. Crocodile Dundee, after that. That was our normal 2020 was star wars was the last thing we recorded pre-lockdown and then we did toy story mission impossible alien croc dundee right um all the greats yeah exactly the big four no one's that loom largest in my mind alien crocodile yeah and mission impossible and alien in both of those series, we had to cover a movie we had already covered on Main Feed. We did a second go-round on Ghost Protocol by Brad Bird and Aliens by Cameron. And we said, well, should we not do this because of Fincher or maybe someday?

And what we said on mic, I don't know if you remember this. I do remember this. Remember it very well. Well, if we ever do Alien 3 yeah we'll talk about the assembly we'll do we'll here we'll watch the original cut because it's the more widely accessible yes um but then when we do the real episode we can obviously delve into the assembly cut so is that what you watched yeah matt i watched both i rewatched both cool like a good guest. Like a great guess. I have seen the original cut many times. Maybe not like

dozens, but like several times. So I'm pretty versed in it. And I'd only seen the assembly cut I think once before. Because I watched it when I bought the correctly and logically named quadrilogy box set. A thing we've talked about many times ruined our generation's brains forever. It implanted a word that does not exist it face hugged onto a generation it did

forcibly implanted a nonsensical word right and it's just like you can kind of tell it's a good way to identify like-minded people if someone else says quadrilogy you're like you were really into physical media in 2003 weren't you you're right i say that word of courseogy, you're like, you were really into physical media in 2003, weren't you? You're right. I say that word. Of course. You're a like-minded person. It's almost the handshake. It is. It's like a secret code. What do you call four stories? Obviously a quadrilogy. And you're like,

and you had the box set, and did you watch it with mother mode on, or did you? God, back in the day where they were like, your DVDs should be hard for you to watch. It should be work. Because I saw you posting about the Memento DVD, which is the day where they were like, your DVDs should, it should be hard for you to watch the movie. It should be work. Because I saw you posting about the Memento DVD, which is the first thing I ever bought on Amazon in my entire life.

Wow. The special edition Memento DVD where you had to go like, man, film, play, God, you know, you have to like go through these notes. You literally had to print out the instructions and like keep them with the DVD. Otherwise it was a useless. So irritating. Did you have that thing and it also if there's a secret way to watch the movie in correct order

right quote unquote i was chronological right i was less of a memento guy than you were i now am tempted to buy that dvd just as almost an artifact to like play the game of it you you know you can you'll have minutes of fun i have a mental on on blu-ray if i artifact to play the game of it. You can. You'll have minutes of fun. I have a mental on Blu-ray if I want to watch the movie, but it's the same way like Panic Room, which is famously not on Blu-ray and we'll talk about when we get to that episode. Sure.

I tracked down and re-bought the old three-disc edition of that that is the most comprehensive special feature package for any movie ever. It was just peak DVD Fincher being like, every single second of this will be documented um absolutely i tried to watch this movie this morning i think i made a uh i watched the movie okay good uh i think the mistake was uh i went like let's go full bore everything right let me activate like basically everything you always do this blu-ray could do for me at once so i did uh the assembly cut i put on subtitles for the commentary track

okay so i was listening to the movies it's not fincher because he correct right he didn't want to be involved he has nothing to do with any of those features. He's very scarred by Alien 3. Right. And then there's a commentary track that feels like, I can't tell if they're all in the same room or it's editing between a couple commentary tracks. But it's like Dickie Edlin from Boss Film. It's the cinematographer. It's the editor who put together the assembly cut. I listened to it at one point and I'm pretty sure it's separate audios blended together.

That they mushed together. Yes. So I was like watching the movie movie reading the transcript of their commentary seems a little sensory overload and then i put mother mode on what would exactly remind me of what you're saying but it's like muth.r mode or something and it is like it puts like a weird waylon yutani grid around the film in which it basically does pop-up video. Why would you need, you don't need it. You already know all this stuff.

And like cuts away to little featurettes, but also gives you like pop-up like trivia track shit. So you made it about 10 minutes in two hours. Yeah. I felt like I was to invoke the recently released Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning when Gabriel goes into the entity tank. Yeah, he's in the coffin of information. Right. Yes, sure. So much is being thrown at me, I can't process any of it.

You emerge and you're like, there is only one movie, Alien 3. I have not seen any of the movies. Right, right. But I have always unabashedly loved this movie. Sure, okay. I think the assembly cut is better while not being perfect. But I have always unabashedly loved this movie. Sure. Okay. I think the assembly cut is better while not being perfect. I think it falls a little bit into that.

Our guest might disagree, which I'm very intrigued by. I saw him floating that idea on Leatherbox. I kind of do disagree. Interesting. But we can talk about it. We can. Yeah. And our feelings on this film. Here's my take.

I came around to watching it this time. Because I had always just been like, well, obviously assembly cut is better. Right? Mm-hmm. I came around to watching it this time because I had always just been like well obviously assembly cut is better right this time I viewed it more like uh uh Zach the Snyder cut where I was like this is interesting to sort of watch laid out right

all the pieces of the intention right it doesn't totally function as a movie Alien 3 for it's like sort of muddled form, is more properly It's a blockbuster film about an alien in a prison.

Right. And partially because, like, Fincher had no oversight over the assembly cut. It was just a team a decade later trying to,

like, put together something closer to his first assembly, which is, would not have been his finished film, was just what he presented to the studio

before they pushed back on him. It's just kind of like cracking open the notebook, you know, and seeing like, here are all the alternate versions of the scenes. Here's how it was originally assembled if you just put everything in order from top to bottom. See, and that's why I kind of think

that the theatrical cut is better. It's because it does feel like a rough cut to me. A little bit. Absolutely. And it does improve certain things, but I think it weakens other things and creates other problems. The theatrical cut has problems. Yeah. The assembly cut solves some of those problems while creating other problems of its own. I almost want a Blade Runner-style final cut thing where it's like, now we need a third cut that meets in the middle but this is the problem is like fincher's like he doesn't want to do it

cut it out stop even telling me about alien 3 whereas rudley scott is like i have one more idea like i mean just like fincher's meanwhile going like zazlav over here what's more final than final the ultimate or something like that blade runner and alexander there's a couple movies like this where they you're like i don't even know which one is supposed to be the last final cut name right because final cut and alexander was the third and then he did a fourth cut yeah i think the ultimate comes after the final and the second one was revisited i believe yes i believe that's correct but it is one of the most confusing theatrical revisited final ultimate and people will because they know i like that film a lot, and I do.

I think that film's excellent. And they'll tweet at me like, which Alexander cut should I walk into? I'm like, I don't know, man. Just lay him out on the table. Dump all the pieces out like a fucking puzzle. I was doing this bit before we recorded, but my new thing is Zaslav reforming him, using it as a verb, but reforming him it's kind of like a grim reaper right of all media even the things that aren't time order it's just gone right

and sometimes it can almost be like a like a philanthropic act sometimes it's like fincher being like please put this movie out of its misery and zazlav just comes in with his scythe alien three doesn't need to go anywhere. No. Look, I want to give us, I want to talk about Fincher, obviously,

but there's just, there's one thing in the assembly cut that I cannot believe is not in the theatrical cut and it almost justifies the whole thing to me, which is those early shots

on the surface with her body, which are so cool in a bucket of it. I'm like, why would you cut this? This is so good. All that production design of that.

Exactly. You spent fucking money on this. It's incredible. And right. It's in the theatrical cut for like 20 seconds, 30 seconds. What's so weird. What's so weird too is like,

when I think of Alien 3, just in abstract as a movie, the first image I think of is Charles Dance on the beach in that opening. Which is, it's just, and it's so cool that we don't really ever go back there and you're like god this is like the weirdest situation but it's like it's such evocative mood setting stuff it's at such a better pace for the movie i think most of the improvements of the assembly cutter in the first i sure it's more in the back half

where you're kind of like this is kind of taking a while right we can talk about this obviously um then i assume you pretty much the regular cut yeah yeah i didn't need more time with this movie um and you but i mean this movie is very you in a way it's got a bit of a benny aesthetic it's got the industrial sort of you know early 90s nine nine-inch nails-y vibe. Yeah. Aggressive dude vibe. Right. There's some chains. Oh, tons of chains. There's tons of chains. Liquid metal.

I will say this. I could have used more dripping in general. At the end, there's waterfalls of molten steel. I mean, every time the alien is in close-up.

Yeah, he drippy. I need dripping like every 10 seconds. Can I actually ask a question about that? Yeah. Obviously, the alien bleeds blood if you cut it or whatever.

But you know how the alien is constantly producing moisture? Like in that iconic shot. Just dripping with water. It's always slimy. Or wet as monster. Is that slime? Is that water? Is that sweat? What is that? Sweat. I was really wondering because it's really coming off that face.

It's incredible to see it just gooing off right yeah how does it stay hydrated yeah do they drink well they kind of suck up they drink pepsi they chase and of course there's a great commercial we all just watched in which the alien sucks down a pepsi incredible 1991 that's the other thing i was seeing from the avp wikia that commercial came out a full year before this movie came out. So it was less of a direct tie-in and more of we have this suit we just built for the movie. And it was also part of another thing we'll talk about that like around this movie, there was this aborted push for like, do we turn Alien into like a kids franchise? into like a kids franchise. Right. That they were planning to around this film, around the release of this film,

come out with a cartoon show. There was a toy line, new video games, all that didn't have that much to do with Alien 3 specifically. But they were like, can we make Alien into just a thing? This peak era of like R-rated franchises

being like toned down for children. Could this be the choice of a new generation? And then they were like, yes, it can. Yes. In this ad for Pepsi. The Pepsi be the choice of a new generation? And then they were like, yes, it can. Yes. In this ad for Pepsi.

The Pepsi commercial is great. You have to watch it. Did you like Alien as a kid? Because again, that would have been pitched at a Ben type. I did. I have my toy from growing up right here. Ben Alien. Ben bought his Alien as a Predator Kenner figures.

I know you're a Predator fan. Over here. Yeah. And he said, he brought them to me and he said, these are like the only toys from my childhood I've kept. That's true. That is fascinating.

I love, though, H.R. Giger's aesthetic for sure. Grew up loving these movies. His early funny work in particular, I think. The comedies. The early funny ones. Oh, my God. Yeah, absolutely. Funny guy.

H.R. Giger's bananas. Funny white. Yeah. Feather-like touch. think the comedies they're really funny ones oh my god yeah absolutely um funny guy funny guys funny white yeah he is feather like touch he is kind of fun there's the the quadrilogy if you will the box set the anthology whatever you want to call the box set has like an incredible making of documentary about each movie but the one about alien 3 is really awesome it has a lot of giger talking in it about his design for this movie which they actually didn't seemingly use a lot of he gave them a lot of stuff i think they kind of mostly just discarded yeah but him talking about it is incredible and if for his does he talk like this yeah does he have a fun accent and he's talking about the erotical things within it and it's it's it's a if you enjoy the comedies of his early works it's actually

pretty pretty there's the rod puppet that they call the bambi burster that plays more in the assembly cut that is like the most juvenile version of the runner alien and that was apparently the main thing that he had an influence on that actually ended up in the film right now ben before we dig into this just because you were asking uh david uh whether or not ben is a fan of alien 3 uh of course one would think well this is ben's second uh time talking about alien 3 on mic if i'm not misremembering was that not the episode was it resurrection resurrection is when ben fully to be fair it was late at night. It was in the middle of the pandemic.

That's a very nappable movie, though. As we've discussed. I agree. It's not the most arresting movie ever made. And Trump had just been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. One of the wilder things to have. And so we were all drinking for unrelated reasons. And I got diagnosed with the bit of a sleepy boy.

Yes. But right with a nappy sleepy boy yes yes yeah right yeah yeah if a doctor had come he would have been like right he had just been diagnosed and we were like all we want to do is talk about this and by the time these episodes come out who knows resolved right in any way it will be too weird so we were like all had this manic energy of trying not to talk about it and ben was like and we're on like little Zoom boxes. And Ben starts lying down on his couch hugging his cat. Right? And he's just sort of like looking adorable. And we're like making jokes about how adorable he looks. And then like 10 minutes and he stops responding to the jokes. We realized he is fully asleep. And just one of our Zoom windows is just Ben sleeping. We're just watching him sleep. asleep and just one of our zoom windows is just ben sleeping we're just watching him sleep ah 2020 but he was like grin like ear to ear grin he looks so peaceful i mean it really did gently just put me right to sleep yeah dan hediah getting like you know his throat dreams of in all the alien movies there's a lot of dream and sleep imagery every you know the first one

the second one this one they all begin with people asleep. Every movie begins and ends with a little nap time. Yes. Well, this one ends with... The ultimate nap. I suppose, yeah. Well, this one has the ending

of a lot of my dreams, which is you're falling to your death. Right, right. Which is incredibly dreamlike as well. So I think it's very justifiable on those grounds. Yeah, yeah. You were just going along with the dreamlike vibe.

And she is dead. She is dead. Like, that's the end of Ripley. Yeah. As much as she was quote-unquote resurrected, obviously, that's a different character explicitly. Right. And then that's it. And I was reading about resurrection on the Xenopedia.

Yeah. And it did point out, like, as much as there is tons of alien stuff that's happened since, nothing has actually been set after this. Yeah. Right. Like, no one's ever actually figured out what happened after that. Yeah, it's interesting. Right. Yeah. Even though it has, like, an explicit cliffhanger, basically, of, like, you know, they're near

Earth and all this. Right. I think before, like, Prometheus formed, there was a moment where it felt like Ridley was considering doing a thing with Sigourney. Right. When he was sort of like, I'd like to go back to Alien before he landed on the more prequel-y thing. And then, obviously, Neil Blomkamp was going to do his thing, but his thing was going to be ignoring this. Right. Which would have been annoying.

Remains the day. I'm very glad they didn't do that. Yeah. In a fascinating way. It's like one of the things— Neil Blomkamp, famously normal and chill, by the way. Yes. I've heard that. Yeah. In a fascinating way. It's like one of the things. Neil Blomkamp famously normal and chill, by the way. Yes. I've heard that.

Yeah. We've all heard that. But it's one of the things. I'm not accusing him of anything criminal, by the way, with that big thing. Just that he can be a bit nervy, I've heard. Especially if you bring up, hey, you used to be like super successful and you're going to make an alien movie. And now it seems like, you know, not really going on for you. You're going to make an alien movie?

And now it seems like, you know, not really going on for you. There was a moment where I was with Alex Ross Perry, our friend, who will never be on this show again. And he, someone else we were with made a joke about someone else being on the verge of getting canceled. Uh-huh. Right. And everyone went like deadly silent. And he went like, i was joking and alex just very wisely said there was literally no one you could say that about who we wouldn't take it seriously right at this point you're just like okay there's no comical name you could throw

out where we just go like impossible santa claus and likewise anytime you say normally and chill normal and chill about anyone who do you expect i mean the man abuses his power day and night yeah he's elves working breaking and entering every house he's basically a peeping tom yeah this guy makes 254 million dollars a year he works one day his salary is higher than any ceo other than zaz left who puts him on the list well that's the question right Right, exactly. Who watches The Watchmen? No, Blomkamp just a weird guy, self-destructive career. A little weird. Anyway. But yes, it is the thing I will forever love this movie for, where like, watching Dial of Destiny,

Yeah. I was just like, why don't we let character stories end? And that movie is for trying to come back and be like like i want to put a period at the end of this but i'm like but but it's still just there is something to that in in this movie and aliens three alien three yeah because yeah it you could tell it feels like and and when you watch again like the supplemental materials it's like well fox really wanted another alien movie and the people who made it are like, oh, okay. Yeah. And that energy is really like infused into the movie

in a way that's like really, like in a twisted way. Twisted. Right. Paradoxical way is really fun. I'm fucking doing this again? Like, it's just, you know, like this movie reminds me, there's a favorite George Costanza quote of mine from the episode The Masseuse, where Jerry is dating. No.

Well, that's a great quote, too. That's the episode where it moves, right? Okay. That sounds right. Yes. But the quote I have in mind in this case, I'm trying to think how it moved could be in conjunction with Alien 3. I mean, I guess it does move. I mean, it's inside.

I don't know. I was just remembering him saying it moved. Jerry is dating the masseuse. She hates George. And George finds himself inexplicably drawn to that. And at one point he says, this woman hates me so much, I'm starting to like her.

And that is how I feel about Alien 3. This movie, it's just like... It's so mad at you. It's exuding, it's exuding antipathy and hatred and just, just mean and nasty and surly

and it kills the protagonist. Yeah. It says, we're never making another one of these stupid movies. Stop asking us for them. It's over.

Right. And that energy, like, I'm a sucker for any, for the same, exactly the reason you're saying, like,

every sequel exists to propagate more sequels. Yes. You know? Especially now,, like they have to play very safe. They have to play it safe. We've got to please, you know, and, and alien in its own way and especially aliens are such crowd pleasers. This movie is by design, a crowd displeaser. It wants you to be on it. Like it's desperately trying to piss you off in every way and and not only is it like does it have that contempt for like the studio system right basically like will and yutani corp well that's the other part that's amazing is fox being like please you have to keep doing this right you don't understand this alien thing is so important to us

it's so valuable it has contempt for for like the studio and for the audience. But then also when you remove the metal layer just inside the movie itself, it's basically like, and we all agree that humanity is terrible. Yes. Just by and large. There's no hope. I don't.

There's no joy. No. There's nothing. It's just misery. Matt, you're roughly my age. So you probably did not see Alien 3 in theaters in 1992. I would have needed an adult supervisor. And I, so probably did not see alien 3 in theaters in 1992 i would have needed an adult

supervisor and i so i did not um i would love to know someone who is sort of from the generation above me because it must have been so i cannot dispute yeah how crushing it must have felt especially back in the day of knowing a lot less about these movies when you're walking into them, to walk into this movie being like, I was 14 years old when I saw Aliens. I was like, I cannot wait for this movie. And the way this movie begins with like, sit down, start crying. Like, nothing good is going to happen. Your friends are dead. Right.

Well, in a way, it's almost more painful to watch now, I feel like, because in the quadrilogy context of where you can... Say it as many times as you want. I'm going to keep doing it because you brought it up. It's like,

because today you can watch, which I did, you could like watch them all in one night or one night after another. Like, you watch Aliens and that has this ending of, you know,

this new family that has been created. They're all going to bed together. Okay, take that disc out. I'm going to put in Alien 3 and see what happens oh wait they're all dead you know like ripley survives but horribly killed in the worst possible ways i i do think there's that thing you talk to most film nerds who are a couple years older than us starting at like maybe like four or five years older than us and this is still like the shorthand

movie for the most disrespectful thing you can do to its characters right this is what they're still afraid of right like now right can you imagine this movie coming out today the reaction right what it would be online it would never make it anywhere in the studio system like no you're not doing that i will still see people say like i heard rumors that they're thinking of pulling an aliens 3 at the beginning of this movie right like i'll I will still see people say, like, I heard rumors that they're thinking of pulling an Aliens 3 at the beginning of this movie, right? Like, I'll see people still use it as, like, the warning sign

of the thing not to do. And people talk about it as if it's, like, almost a traumatic incident of, like, how could a studio fuck up what we liked this much? Right, right. And we talked about this

in our commentary episodes, but, like, I discovered, I watched the first Alien and the first Predator rented both on VHS from the video store across the street in the same night and was like holy fucking shit and then watched every friday for the next three weeks would rent the next alien movie so i'm just like watching this in a compressed month cycle where part of what i'm into is like and what you're telling me they're all different? Right. So when Alien 3 starts, I'm like, yeah, that's how these movies work. Sure.

I felt no, it was like later that I found out, oh, people hate this. They hate the vibe of it. They hate that they killed off the characters. They hate that it's its own thing. If Newt wasn't involved, I feel like the audience revulsion would have been as much as we all like Michael Biehn's pretty face. And Hicks is very charming. Sure. as much as we all like Michael Bean's pretty face,

and Hicks is very charming. Sure. If there was some sort of way for them to have been like, Newt got ejected onto a happy colony. Yes. Right. And she's fine. Yeah. And who knows what happened to Hicks,

and Ripley's stuck here now. I honestly feel like people were just like, you killed off maybe the best child character in the history of genre film. Right. A thing that people usually hate. Right. we all hate that kind of a character right it's the one we let into our hearts and then you become the movies like drowned horribly charles dance is like yeah i don't know she's fucking dead though i'll tell you that much so dead also when you again go back and look at aliens and you look at all the things this character survived. It's true.

And you watch her go through this incredible ordeal. And then you watch Ripley go down into, you know, like she gets kidnapped again and she has to go down to the queen and rescue her again. And you're like, wow. Imagine the groans in the audience. Right. As like the credits play and it's like there's a fucking alien on the ship. Right. And also, as you said, David, like at the time this movie is coming out, people know less about movies going into them.

Even if you're someone who reads fucking Starlog magazine and whatever. Right. You're still not going like, well, Ripley and Newt aren't in the trailer, so it definitely means they die in the opening credits. Right. There's not the same like ecosystem of dialogue. I think a lot of people show up and are like, I'm curious to see what they do with Ripley and Newt. I feel like the big thing that I because I do remember this movie coming out and I feel like the big thing that you remember from the

or I remember from the marketing was just Sigourney Weaver cut off her hair. Like that was the whole marketing. That was like a huge thing. Apart from that, they were like three times the thrill. Like they really hit the three. Yeah. Cubed thrills. But there wasn't, you know, they didn't really dwell on what even the movie was like

about or anything. It's just like right it's like gordon weaver looks wild and awesome in this and we got more well she does right and we got more alien and that was it that was the whole idea right she got a big salary on this i feel like that was another big thing of like she's kind of breaking new like uh uh uh pay ceilings for women in film. Yeah. I think Resurrection even was up from this. Yeah, she made... Oh, I'm sure. I believe she made more on Resurrection than, like, the budget of Alien or something.

There's some, like, stat like that that's very funny. But, like, this was 10 and that was... She made a lot of money. ...like 16 or something like that. Yeah, because she's quite important. Yes. Obviously. And we can talk about the development of this movie,

but there was a time when Fox was, like, developing two follow-ups yeah and one was gonna she was gonna be in the second was the idea interesting she would not the hicks would be the lead of the first movie michael bean this is is this the gibson thing this is pre gibson i think i mean gibson is this walter hill and his partner yeah i guess yes it's wal, it's Walter Hill and David Giler, who's the longtime producer of these movies. Right, here's the idea. You know, Hicks would be the protagonist of Alien 3, and Ripley would barely appear,

and then in the fourth, she would return, and there would be, like, a big epic battle of fucking aliens. Right, that's the other thing. I think even if you're someone watching these trailers, and you're like, huh, Hicks and Newt aren't in them, right? And you're aware of the fact that, like, Newt was played by a child and, like, what, seven years have passed. Right. She may not want to.

Right. Cryo Sleep is not going to be able to work with this premise or whatever. Right. You still might be like, oh, part of the premise is there was a ship crash and Ripley has landed somewhere different than them. You don't necessarily think, like, 15 minutes into the movie you're going to newt's chest cracked open right lying on a slab um i i we need to get into fincher background but just another thing to pin here in terms of like uh uh killing uh newt as a character and that being a thing that people were really devastated by i do think it's interesting that uh aliens is obviously like thought of as such a big like seminal work of motherhood, right?

Right, yes. In science fiction and genre film, like really one of the best encapsulations of that. She makes that movie. She doesn't have any children. I was – when in mother mode, too much information being thrown at me, they kept on talking about they made the dummy that Charles Dance carries from the beach. Okay. And when they made it. All covered in goo and worms.

Yes. When they made the dummy, Sigourney was like eight months pregnant. Oh, shit. Sure. Okay. And so they didn't scan her, but they, you know, they took measurements, they took pictures. And she was just like, just focus on my head and my shoulders, and I assure you that I will be this lean by the time we start filming, which was like six months later. So she's making this movie six months after having her first child, and there was something

to, whereas the last movie would be the movie that most actors would be like, well, I was really able to tap into something, draw upon as a new mother these feelings i was feeling instead she now has a kid for the first time and the movie is like my child is dead was the child yours no i'm not her mother right but she plays those scenes amazing she's great in those scenes totally but i think it's like it speaks to her daring as an actor that she's sort of like i now want to do the thought experiment of the worst thing i could possibly imagine happening and make the movie that's going into like the darkest part of my psyche now that I kind of know what it would feel like to lose a child it feels like every time she was lobbed a bleak take she was not resistant to it her one thing was that movie not have guns yes as we've discussed and we can discuss again yeah but apart

from that I don't think she was really like newt, obviously. Like, we need Newt or we need X. No. No. All right. But David Fincher. How do you feel about David Fincher, Matt? You think he's overrated? Real dingbat, kind of crappy filmmaker.

Dingbat. Didn't match much. You hit the word I was thinking of. No, I mean, amazing, amazing director. But his movies look like shit, right? Yeah. You think he's a fucking doily effort. And the vibe I get from them too,

you know, I'm glad you bring that up, they just feel very slapdash, put together. He's a hack. Like, one take wonders. Right. You know, like,

we got it, we're moving on. Like, that's how I feel about a lot of them. Total Eastwood style. I also feel like notoriously just kind of like a sleep in video village, like doesn't really care

about anything happening. Right. Lets people like run their own devices. I mean, the thing that's, I mean, there's a couple of fun Fincher elements to this, but part of what is really fun about it is that at this time, obviously, first feature, and he's what, like 27 or something? He is 27 years old.

Absurdly young age when they hire him. Yeah, very upsetting when they hire him. And they basically, you know, I think, again, I'm going to keep referring to that making of documentary. Someone on the production side says, or maybe multiple people, they're like, well, he was a really good shooter. Yeah. You know, they think of him as this guy who obviously, based on his music videos and everything he's done, he's an incredible visual stylist. Yeah stylist yeah but they just thought well because he's going to be grateful to be here yeah right he's going to be happy to have this huge job make it look nice he's going to be the good shooter and he's going to shoot what we tell him and he's going to you know just go along with us and that

is not what he did and we'll talk more about the development this film but right it is that classic studio thing of like we'll hire the director last right that'll be easy right which is insane yes but but right they're like nah well we have to hack everything else together first what's established is a very director-driven franchise well indeed yes uh and remains so in its way, obviously, you know, AVP or whatever, even W.S. Anderson is an auteur in his right and all that. David Fincher, born Denver, Colorado, 1962. Did you know that? No, that's not where he grows up. No, he grew up in Marin County, California. Just a couple doors down from our old friend, Georgie Porgy Lucas.

The legend is he grew up down the street, two driveways down from George Lucas. Now, George Lucas is obviously probably 20 years older than David Fincher, right? Yeah, but they were like buddies. They'd play like stickball together and shit. George Lucas, wow, I nailed it. 19 years older than David Fincher.

So yes, you know, Marin County, when he was a child, was haunted by the Zodiac Killer. Just a little... Never come up again? Right. Thing to note. Yep.

His dad worked in, it will come up a lot obviously, worked as a journalist for Life Magazine. Yes. Did a lot of freelance magazine stuff. Sort of a science writer mainly, I think. Primarily. But was a very big movie buff took him to all the movies mother his mom worked in mental health yes and and substance abuse right like sort of sounds more like she was in um uh not not a therapist i'm not sure exactly what her job was

but she worked in like you know substance yeah um abuse programs um but yes, took him to see all the movies. And, you know, Fincher was very good at drawing from a very young age. Yes, but also, in a very Finchery way, frustrated that he was not perfect at drawing. Sure. He'd look at his drawings, people would go, you're good, and he'd be like, it's all wrong. I think this is a quote that our researcher has dug up where he's like someday uh you know i used to always go someday you'll have the skill to draw exactly what you see in your head you'll be able to show to someone and if they like it then you'll be able to transfer this thing through this apparatus putting my head to this communication of ideas

and it does feel like that it comes up with fincher a lot where he's like i know exactly how this is supposed to look i just need you people to understand what's in my head. And his team who are mostly very loyal to him, they're like, we understand. This is our job is to sort of like translate. Look, filmmakers like this, filmmakers like Wes Anderson, like Spielberg and whatever, a lot of their strength comes once they've made a couple films and they've established their good team. whatever a lot of their strength comes once they've made a couple films and they've established their good team and the team basically knows how to finish their sentences where they can just start going like i know what his tastes are i know what he's gonna want right um um his editor i've interviewed all the people worked on mank i've talked about it before i'm sure i'll talk about

again mank his editor mank mank mank remember mank mank i remember his editor is Mink. Mink, Mink. Remember Mink? Mink! Mink! And I remember his editor is like, I am his therapist. Like, that's my job, is to be showing him dailies, being like, see? What you're doing makes sense. And Fincher would be like,

yes, yes, yes, yes. Or to be like, no, no, no, no. Like, you know, we have to change things. But usually it's like, I'm trying to anticipate his anxiety by being like, this is going to look good.

The film that inspired a young Fincher most, butch cassidy and the sundance kid or more accurately a televised making of documentary about the movie uh which blew his mind uh because he had not put together like many children don't put together that movies are not made in real time yes movies are complex uh jj did not include this in his research but a movie he's fired heard he's fired he's double fired a movie i've heard him talk about a lot which at first i found very surprising and now i i think is kind of key and i think even maybe when benjamin button was coming out and he curated a series benjamin broadcast when he curated a series of his influences at MoMA,

he cites Mary Poppins as, like, a humongous movie for him. Hmm. That's cool. I think a lot of it was the, like, the technical trickery... The technical complexity. Right. Right, to create something that feels very natural and lived in. Not that it's a natural movie, you know,

but I think, like, a lot of that movie is magic kind of tossed off. And the full creation of a world now there's a ben hosley moment here when he was nine years old he asked his mother for a bb gun and she said she said no i'm not gonna get you a bb gun what else might you want and he said fine i'll accept a movie camera now he says this was sort of a trick he was playing because a movie camera costs like 10 times as much as a fucking BB gun. That was really smart. And they were like,

all right. And they, you know, he starts making little movies which he says were quote unquote insane. He says his mother was often extremely disturbed

by the movies he would make. Moves to Oregon when he's 14, works as a projectionist. I mean, all of this is just such classic like early direct, young director stuff, right? Gets a camera, makes 14, works as a projectionist. I mean, all of this is just such classic, like, early director, young director stuff, right?

Yeah. Gets a camera, makes little movies, becomes a projectionist. He went to something called the Berkeley Film Institute. I don't know if that still exists. If you guys have ever heard of it. As a teenager, to learn how to make movies. Mm-hmm. And he got in touch with someone at Corti Films.

Okay. Do you know what this is, Griffin? No. Which was an animation studio. Okay. And his first screen credit for quote-unquote special photographic effects came on their animated film Twice Upon a Time. Oh, yes. Which was a Lucasfilm production.

Obviously up there in North California, that's Lucasfilm territory, right? Yeah. I love that movie. And so then he pivots from that to ILM. Yes. His dream landing spot ever since he met George Lucas when he was 10 years old. And he works famously on Return of the Jedi. He's assistant cameraman on that.

He does matte photography on Temple of Doom. And on Never Ending Story. Correct. Credited as Dave Fincher Dave Fincher Little Dave Fincher Good old Dave But I think then he's basically at ILM Sort of at the end of that early golden era

Because it's the mid 80s People like Phil Tippett and Joe Downs are moving on Star Wars is done I mean for now So he is getting bored And he does a famed advertisement, which Marie actually just sent us in text message, but I knew it,

and I assume you may have seen it, in which a fetus is smoking a cigarette in utero as an anti-cancer ad. I can remember it from childhood, yeah. And that kick-started his music video career, which, you know, Rick Springfield, look, we're going to talked his music video career, which, you know, Rick Springfield. Look, we're going to talk about his music videos. We're going to do an episode on that. How do you feel about his music videos, if any way at all?

Obviously, very formative time for music videos in general, late 80s, early 90s. Yeah. I mean, I'm the wrong kind of dork for that fair i would not be a good guest on that one but i mean i was why i was sure i was watching some of them last night kind of trying to put myself in the headspace of this is the guy who then went on to make uh alien 3 and i mean visually maybe a there's a little there's a quality i guess a lot of them are black and white a lot of the best ones are black and yeah like the madonna videos yeah so they they have a lot more like yeah like although actually one of the madonna videos has a very fun bit with like um she's standing behind

i think the like screens and um it reminds reminded me of one of the most famous moments in alien 3 with um charles dances death scene where you know in the infirmary which has all these yes the like shower curtain kind of things and you see like the the alien the the uh silhouette and all of that which is a great scene yes um. But it is fascinating. I think he has not wanted to go back and talk about his music video work. He famously refused to be included in the director's label, all that shit.

Come on, Finchie. He would have been perfect, which he's like made for. He would have had like the best one. And I do think there's a Mandela effect thing of people thinking I own that DVD. Yes. Which they didn't. Chris Cunningela effect thing of people thinking I own that DVD. Yes.

Which they didn't. Chris Cunningham who had one worked on this film. Chris Cunningham rules. Along with Steve Norrington. A lot of guys who later go on to become directors were in the effects team on this movie. Chris Cunningham again maybe the most Ben director because he did those AFX twin videos. Oh fuck yeah. Like Window Licker and Come to Daddy and stuff. He did the Bjork robot video.

But he built a lot of the puppets and models for this movie. That's his primary interest. And Norrington, who goes on to direct Blade, was also a big effects guy on this movie. A similarly good director to David Fincher, right? Fincher and Norrington. Equally great. But this is the era of these guys getting plucked up, right?

You do music videos and then you get brought into Hollywood. The point I was going to make is his movies, or his music videos rather, do not have, they have a really strong visual style, but it definitely feels, and this is why I imagine he doesn't really want to reclaim them.

He is serving the voice of the artist, of the record label, of the campaign. He's using them as sort of like technical exercise. He's the record label, of the campaign. He's using them as sort of like technical exercise. He's a good shooter, you might say. He's a great shooter. The anti-smoking ad

does feel like it has a little bit of the Fincher worldview in it. Right. But you watch his best music videos and they're like technical triumphs. Some of them are incredibly good, but they don't feel like

they have the worldview that starts immediately in this movie and carries through the rest of his filmography. Right. A guy where it's like you cannot beat his worldview out of his films. It does not matter what he's working on. Now, Fincher's hot shit. Yes.

But he is looking for the right project to start with. This is a very funny quote. I assume you know which one I'm talking about. Apparently, he was pitching Sid G ganas uh who's the president of paramount on some movie and sid's he hasn't made a movie yet and sid says fincher no one's gonna give you 40 million dollars for your first picture and fincher said sid i know that why would i do a 40 minute movie good line but also that's so funny indicative of fincher's, you know, expensive tastes, even before he started making them. But also, as we'll say

many times, his reputation is he doesn't just throw out some willy-nilly number. He doesn't just waste money. But this is where he learns a lot of these lessons. Absolutely. But he just, like, reads the script and goes, I understand exactly, practically what I would need, what time

I would need, what equipment I would need, what equipment I would need, how much it would cost. And FYI, it's a lot. Yeah. Which I love him for. Right. And if it's a cent less, I walk off. Right.

And that's a lot out of this experience where he thought he could sort of like win the arguments in real time rather than getting the agreement going in. So, okay, over to Alien. So Ridley Scott made a film in 1979 called Alien. Pretty good. Pretty, not too shabby. movie 1996 james cameron makes a sequel oh you can't make a sequel to

alien what's there to do alien dollar sign yeah i would say also big hit pretty good not too shabby so so far yeah high expectations obviously in, in this world. Especially when Aliens is the thing that on paper people were like, some other fucking guy is coming in and making a sequel. Who does he think he is? To Ridley Scott's movie. How dare you? And he's going to sort of do this genre shift. When that works, it's suddenly like, well, now Alien is a franchise

where people come in and take big swings at a very high level. But if I'm a director, I'm like, no fucking way do I want to do another. The expectations are impossible. Terrifying. And there's no, like, Cameron's zag is so obvious. Where the hell are you going to zag from that? The pit of despair is where you zag. Now, David Hill and, Walter Hill and David Giler,

the sort of stewards of Alien, the producers, the great Walter Hill, of course. We all love Walter Hill and David Giler, the sort of stewards of Alien, the producers. Great Walter Hill, of course. We all love Walter Hill. Great old Grumpus that he is now. They make this treatment. They send it to William Gibson, who has written Neuromancer. William Gibson writes a script that I feel like we were talking about, Matt. I might have when we were texting.

It's quite notorious as like one of those great unproduced scripts that people sort of lionize right and now they've made like an audible like a drama out of it an audio drama there's a graphic novel there's a novel like you can consume it almost every way except as a movie now yes right and uh i feel like we may have briefly mentioned it on our uh other episode but uh you know, he calls his joking summary is space commies hijacked alien eggs. Big problem in wall mall world. Cause it's set in a giant mall. It's a very cool script. I will say it's very different from this movie.

Well, right. And it's mostly about Hicks. Yes. Which I think was his remitit i think he was told like ripley will come in for the fourth movie right right so right as a hicks adventure yeah right uh renny harlan was supposed to direct it he had just made nightmare on elm street 4 and i guess that was enough i mean it's a it's a nightmare on street 4 is fun i'm not

yeah that's dream child or Dream Master. Dream Master. Yeah. Dream Child is kind of bad. I kind of like Dream Child. But yeah, no, Harlan's in a weird place to be. Well, Harlan is just... This is before he does Die Hard 2? Yes.

Yeah, and Ford Fairlane. Well, Ford Fairlane is what he gets handed when this falls apart. Ford Fairlane, of course, being the Andrew Dice Clay movie. What a perfect apology job. But yes, it's like the Sulaco drifts into this sort of like

sort of space communist empire, like Marxist place, and they pick them up. Rennie, we got bad news and good news for you. The bad news is you're not making Alien 3 anymore. You're not making the third Alien film. The good news is you are making making Alien 3 anymore. You're not making the third Alien film.

The good news is you are making the first Ford Fairlane movie. Did you, you're an Andrew Dice Clay boy, Ben? You get to kickstart the franchise. No, okay. He reminded me too much of the people that lived in the town that I grew up with in New Jersey. Gave you shit. Yeah, right, right, right. He's not very alternative, Andrew Dice Clay.

No, not at all. Yeah, so it's this whole clever script of like... He's more of like a, I say, slurs kind of vibe. No, I mean, that was his vibe in the 80s very much. Has anyone seen Ford Faraday? I have not seen Ford Faraday. No, I have, but it's been a while. It's a very, like, Matt Singer project

for you to watch. Yes, it's schlock. The worst garbage. Exactly, exactly. Shovel it in my face. I wouldn't be surprised if Ford Fairlane had an Arby's tie-in at the time. Ford's got the meats. Anyway, it's a cool script.

You can check it out. Basically, Weyland-Yutani has an army of aliens. The space Marxists have their own army. There's a big battle. I don't know. It's insane. Yeah. Right?

I mean, that's my diagnosis of it insane cold war in space uh renny harlan comes on board but the producers didn't really like it no sort of they thought it was crazy yes and so i think everyone else kind of liked it just becomes this like revolving door of like takes and writers and directors and until it ultimately winds up with fincher right they give it to eric red uh near dark writer who revises it down basically in terms of scale uh and then uh david twohy the great david twohy yes uh the fugitive writer right yeah uh pitch black man later which is sort of like alien adjacent very alien vibes the pitch black movies yes and it's almost very alien three vibes specific yeah

yeah yeah like bald people in impressively bleak sci-fi conditions yes uh he had just written critters too it is weird that they're scooping people out of the like new line cinema, like horror sequels, but whatever. I guess that was kind of hot shit back then. When this should be in the genre world. Platinum franchise. I mean, but I think back then it was,

even if it was a big deal for, it's still a fucking sci-fi horror movie, right? Like that's still like just lesser than, even if aliens got Oscar nominations. I don't know. So is the first alien 78 79 79 it is insane to process that this movie comes out 13 years after alien yes you know

where it's like you can understand the seismic shift in the industry between alien and aliens and the shift between aliens and this but when you remove aliens from the middle and you just look at what's changed in in the studio system in 13 years you do understand how just even by like 1990 they're maybe starting to pull up the ramps and go like how much do we want to deal with people who think of themselves as artists right right is it better to get guys who can just get it done? Just get technicians. Yes. Right.

Because there, well, and there's certainly, we haven't really talked about it yet, but there was certainly a point in the development of Alien 3 where they could have gone that route. Yes. And they specifically were like, you know what? Maybe not. Right. All right, let's see.

I just want to, Twohy is the one who brings in the prison planet concept. Okay? Harlan exits. He's like, I'm riding the dice train okay i'm rolling the dice well i think i'm gone i'm pretty sure his thing was he wanted he had these very ambitious ideas that again like fox was like we're not paying for these sorts of whole planet made of wood well that was that's my favorite thing in the world i'm sorry har like, well, we should go to the planet where the aliens come from. Sure.

Which is an obvious pitch. And potentially quite an expensive one. Richard Geiger drew up a design that looked like a butthole. I mean, this is the whole thing. There's been so many alien movies and prequels and sequels, and yet no one has ever actually

really been like, let's put the aliens on Earth, or let's go to alien planet right they keep brushing up against it and they're being like yeah we'll save that for next time and those were the two things that renny harland supposedly wanted to do which they wouldn't he's he's kind of a fastball down the middle guy right he's like die to die hard to die harder yeah um just die a little. Let's not freak people out. Just tie a little bit harder. So, Troy writes this prison script, but Ripley is not really a character in it. Okay. So, they're like, get back here, because now we've decided Ripley should be the star. Like, whatever.

Some come to Jesus moment. Right. Smart decision. Right. And then they see this film, The Navigator, by New Zealand director Vincent Ward. Yes. And they're like, we love this guy. Which is clearly what they did with Jeanne later too, where they're just sort of like, this guy has a unique artistic vision.

Like, we should just have a meeting with him. They bring him in and he pitches them this sort of medieval concept of a wooden planet. I just think this is when Hollywood was at its best. Yes. Someone could walk into a studio and be like, whole planet is wood. And even if it didn't... Anyone ever thrown that at you?

Even if it didn't happen, then consider it. Then you're about to start asking questions. I don't know that there are answers. What do they mean? Like trees when you say wood? What do they mean coming from Ben Hosley, the man who, when we watched Treasure Planet for this show,

said, I was disappointed that the entire planet wasn't a treasure. That is true. And we said, what do you mean? Like it was made out of treasure? And you went, no, like the planet is a chest. Right. Right.

Absolutely. Right. And I stand by that. With a keyhole. Right. So Ben is bumping on planet made of wood. Well, yeah, because I just, I mean, trees are made of wood. Correct. And trees because I just, I mean, trees are made of wood

and trees cover a lot of the planet. But is this just like a big It's like a structure. Man-made. Is it like the inside of a baseball? You know what I mean? Yeah, I think kind of that. Just a solid wood planet. I pictured it

more like it was a man-made construction out of wood that is now in orbit. Somehow it has atmosphere now. Boards nailed together. The idea is that they're rubbing his hands together trying to process this. They reject all technology and are populated by monks.

And I think, what I think is my favorite thing about all this is that they hear this and they don't go, please leave the office. Immediately, your parking will not be validated right they're instead like why don't you go and write here's 40 million dollars when you say this was your favorite era of hollywood it's like they wouldn't let you do this but they'd think about it for a while planet a now it would be like you know how many women in stem can be in the movie? Like, to what extent can it not do anything, right? You know, like...

How does it set up number four? How does it set... Will Saudi Arabia be mad at us if we make this movie? Can be recruited by G.I. Joe at the end. In fact, and they're just like, I don't know, write the Wood Planet script. Here's a brick of cocaine and, you know, like, see you in two weeks.

Yeah. So they start writing this... That's part of the wga strike right to guarantee that writers get a brick of cocaine on their first draft exactly right colombian pure yes the good shit um chloe somehow catches wind like hey they got someone writing a wood planet script and he's like are you fucking like pitting scripts against each other at this point like what is going on i could write a planet made out of something absolutely and so they're like all right fuck you you're out you know we're going all in on wood planet yeah um and vincent ward is writing wood planet but he's like i don't really know

what to do with ripley i don't know why she would be here like this i have just all these monk concepts they bring in production designers and they're like this is gonna cost a fortune yeah like everything's gonna be made of wood like you're crazy and so finally like some it gets all the way up and some studio exec is like can you nix the wood planets like can we be done and that was like a line in the sand for ward uh ward leaves the project um but he does get a story credit and it's like you know the only one with a story which is sort of bananas the screenplays credited guyler and hill and larry ferguson who But he does get a story credit. And it's like, you know. He's the only one with a story credit, I think. Which is sort of bananas. Right.

The screenplay is credited to Guyler and Hill and Larry Ferguson, whoever that is. And it's sort of this, you know, they're mishing up the monks with the prison planet. They turn the monks into prisoners, but they're kind of religious. They're just smushing everything together. One of the problems with the movie, I think, is that it kind of winds up being like, well, they're just pushing everything together one of the problems with the movie i think is that it yeah it it kind of winds up being like well they're obsessed with religion but they're prisoners right but they don't really i mean their religious ideas are so nebulous and vague i mean they have charles dance almost like acknowledge that with a line of dialogue how it's like well we don't they're apocalyptic millenarian i don't know

it's vague they've turned to god in their desperate time right yes it's a little vague what exactly it's one of those classic studio too long development movies that has like 10 phantom limbs yes of like 100 clearly used to extend into something that actually functions right and through all these drafts mushed together, nothing's been dropped completely. Right. And the other thing is that after all of these drafts, all of the writing, all of the developing, all the ideas, when they do finally get Fincher, they start making a movie without a script. Yes.

Which is bananas and absurd also. It's like after all this time, because what happened, which we haven't said yet, is at some point during all of this ridiculous development, Fox is like, this is good enough. You're coming out on X date. Yeah, that's exactly what happens. Right. And then they have to. And then when Ward leaves, they have to come up with a director and then they have to basically like, well, here's all the pieces of things we have.

Right. How can we turn this into something that can come out on this date? And it's like a case of like, well, we've made these amazing sets. How can we fit them into this movie that we're making now? And how can we have prisoners who are also kind of monkish? And the movie does, as much as I do like it, it does at times feel like a jumble of different disparate elements absolutely but matt to be fair we have to give credit where credit is due every time a studio has said this is good enough just start making it and we'll figure it out later it has worked perfectly every time you're right unfortunately yeah there are examples of that being true yes and i do think that convinces studios like yeah we'll be like fucking that movie one out of 100 it's it's rare and when you hear about it not only is it rare it sounds stressful yeah and that would certainly be the case here not only does it sound stressful but you like read interviews with the people who worked on

those movies and they were like that was the worst period of my entire life i don't view that as a career triumph i mean i think the thing that's cool about Alien 3, though, is that the parts of it that are coherent are the parts that reflect that process. Yes. Because you feel that kind of anger and frustration and negativity in the movie. I mean, that and the hatred of the corporation and how

they're trying to, I mean, what I was going to say way a while ago that I don't think I ever even said was like, the alien in this movie is David Fincher in some weird way. The corporation brings – Love a singer take. They want to control him. That's a good ass take.

They want to – They're hurting him. Come on, come on, go over there. Go over there. They think – Yeah, right. Just hang on to him. He's amazing.

Right. Once we get him, think of the possibilities with this guy. Yeah. Just don't kill him we can we can control him right and they bring him in and what does he just do he just he refuses to go along and it's like i i just feel like you know this is like the movie the alien would make and it's the one thing they didn't account for the director would have ideas right yes and ripley in this case is kind of sigourney whereas i think most

the other directors have viewed ripley as like their analog sure right right in this movie ripley is the one person who's like i know he's a little terrifying i think i kind of understand deal with this it's true just lock me down there with him it's fine i'll i'll get him where he needs he's not gonna kill me i know that at the very least. I'm safe. Fincher does say that his initial pitch when they bring him in was more expensive. I mean, this is his quote, and it is the thing I think we'll find. He's a very quotable man.

He's very funny, and he's very dry, and he's just got away with words. He says, okay, my pitch was like a david lean movie it was about pedophiles in outer space it was a huge movie and very complicated and political there were three lance henriksons running around paul mcgann was a serial killer the end of the movie had the alien running around with 3 000 stormtroopers on the way it was massive and strange and i went like you know like here's this movie and they said nah we can have like 18 guys show up at the end. And I said, well, they should have a cool contraption then.

And they were like, nah, we can't afford that. So already they're just, as he puts it, cutting the balls off the thing. Right. Like you said, they're just like, it's fine if it's one alien killing some guys. Yeah. Just shut up. Just put the camera at it. Don't overthink this.

Yeah. Right. Because it's an R-rated movie. Yes. They don't want to spend $200 million on it in fucking 1992 or whatever. No. And I mean, I was talking about with someone the, you know, there's a lot of hand-wringing going on at the time we're recording this in July about the perceived failure of Dial

of Destiny and just like, how could Disney spend this much on 80-year-old Harrison Ford, right? Why would they make that movie at that number? And I do think, whether or not this was part of their strategy, by just putting Indiana Jones back in theaters, it does kind of boost the older Indiana

Jones movies and their value to Disney, you know? Right, right. Yeah, no, no. There's a whole tale. It boosts the value of him staying in the theme parks and all this sort of shit. And I think there was this version of, like, because there was all this machinery of them being, like, video games, comic books, toys, cartoon show.

Pepsi, all this shit. You know, what Fox ultimately did and what disney and buying fox has recognized is just like the alien as iconography is so valuable it is so valuable to have a third movie in theaters before a decade is up right we just got to do something right and like the other stuff that's why they thought about wood planet totally and the other stuff that they're doing doesn't need to really have anything to do with the third movie. It just helps to have, like, posters in theaters. That character. That's why you can't do it this way. Of course.

Because that is what they were doing. It's like, it's Alien 3! The first teaser for Alien 3 is like, it claims that the movie's gonna be set on Earth. It's like they don't even really know what the movie they're making is by the time they're advertising it. They said it couldn't be done, but there's a third Alien movie. It's basically their pitch.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Wait, because aliens are kind of like space bugs. What if there was a new variant of aliens, but it was like termites, and it started chomping down on the wood planet? Huge problem for the wood planet. That would be a fucking big issue.

Yeah, perfect movie. Perfect movie. Please not even involve this. Just have them eating wood. Yeah. And then the monks fall through a hole. I just love this idea. Right through into space.

I could just walk in there and be like, a whole planet's made of milk. And they're like, is there an alien in it? I'm like, yeah, sure. We can put an alien in that. And they're like, yeah, get to work. It's fine. We just need there to be an alien movie.

Fincher is the one who has the idea of shaving Ripley's head, which is such a good idea. Incredible idea. And he doesn't want her to be fucking Ripley's head, which is such a good idea. Incredible idea. And, you know, he doesn't want her to be, you know, fucking, you know, Ripley in her underwear dodging the alien, right? He wants her to be this sort of hardened figure. Yes. You know, we decided the reason this keeps happening to her is because this is what she's

cursed to do. She's cursed to fight this thing till it's over. It's just the take I love. It's my favorite thing about this movie. Yeah, if I'm Ripley, I'm never going to sleep again, by the way. Every time I wake up, I'm in a new fucking place with another goddamn alien.

Yeah. And I have to explain to all these new people, like, you don't understand, this thing is the worst. You do question the whole hypersleep element of these movies at a certain point when it keeps happening. So, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, so blah, blah, blah? I'm just reading, you know, what if a uh, blah, blah, blah. Oh, so blah, blah, blah. I'm just reading, you know, Fincher complaining about all the scripts. What if a planet was blah, blah, blah? We think that was Fox's pitch. Um, look, there's tons and tons of fighting. We should talk about the plot though. But like, you know, the story Fincher making this movie is just him constantly being slapped down by Fox over and over again in

terms of budget uh and in terms of just like you know taking too long to do everything and fox being like what is the matter with you yeah like why are you not delivering for us as fast as we want yeah right uh why is the budget out of control all this why can't you just give us this movie even though you don't have a script that's finished. What's wrong with you? A big thing they talk about in that mishmash commentary is that, like, Richard Adlin, a legend of the field, basically at the top says, like, this is one of the very last, like, totally photochemical, optically printed movies. Right. There are very limited amount of digital effects in the movie. It's mostly at the very end. Like, when the alien's head almost explodes, cgi was really big next to nothing but there's like certain pieces of this

that look really dodgy the people always outline mostly the alien right which is mostly uh rod puppet yeah with digital removal it is just that like the compositing is so bad yes uh and that is largely because i think they were just like we do not have time to get this right. They lacked time and money. Right. Because I do think it could look better. Fincher would have worked it until it looked great. You know?

And there's a lot of just sort of like, just put it in there. I mean, some of these shots in the assembly cut are like new shots too, right? Didn't they like insert a couple of things? I think there's a, I think they, when it first came out, maybe it wasn't, but then they made a second version.

They spruced it up a little better. They spruced it. They also brought in actors. Yeah, the audio is improved. Right, because initially you could not hear the audio. Yes. And they had to have subtitles, which is cute. I mean, I love the DVD for its kind of like, you know, popsicle sticks and, you know, bubble gum kind of like,

look, we're just putting this together. Yeah, and this was also, this was that era wherevds were so big that there was that thing of like really scott will give you 10 million dollars to rework blade yeah we're gonna make so much money right like there's actual budget being put into these reconstructing projects even though some of the i totally agree like a lot of the shots you're talking about they don't look good no right but but then on the other hand there's like that exterior we talked about before that's gorgeous and amazing and they show it on screen in the theatrical cut for 45 seconds. I think a lot of this movie looks incredible, and I think, like, the effects work of the alien itself looks good.

It's the combination of the two elements that don't look good. I mean, Ebert's slam on this movie was famously, it's, like, the best-looking bad movie ever made. Sure. Oh, Ebert, you say roger ebert ebert you say did you watch we can talk about it later i suppose interesting did they have someone should write a book about did they have an alien 3 review they did there is that you can watch it on youtube for sure um i assume they were negative i that was yeah Two thumbs up or is there a, let me find the thing here. I think that best looking bad movie was from the seven review when they were talking about

Fincher later, but I was looking at, um, I'll just, while you guys are looking things up, two thumbs down. Yeah. Yeah. Literally have a hundred thousand word document on my computer with every review they ever gave. So yeah, it just takes a second. His most damning things were things he said later. Right. That's a hundred thousand word document on my computer with every review they ever gave. So yeah, it just takes a second.

His most damning things were things he said later, right? So Fight Club is when he said Alien 3 is one of the best looking bad movies I've ever seen. Alien Resurrection, Ebert says, I lost interest in Alien 3 when I realized that the aliens could at all times outrun and outleap the humans. So all the chase scenes were contrivances. Sure. I sort of know what he means it's the problem of the alien of being so powerful yeah right but then it's like it's just always panic when the alien is there which i find so exciting and they have the and this and this movie

specifically they have the the i i call them like ramey-esque shots of the point of view yeah but they're like going around the the corridors are so cool i i love that shit it's sort of amazing no one had ever thought to do that i also think the like being able to outrun the alien for most of the movie isn't a problem when your movie is working towards the fixed end point of death is the only escape right right because sort of the point it's making is like she's caught in this constant cycle it's never killing her but she's never totally freed of it. So, yeah, look, as Fincher comes aboard, there's just still constant more rewrites,

constant fighting. I forgot that Rex Pickett, the author of the book Sideways, was brought in to do one last rewrite. And Fincher took him out to dinner and was like, this is what's going on. This is what they're telling me. I'm telling them this,

they're not, this is going to be way over. By the way, I'm not drinking Merlot. Go on. And Pickett apparently was like, you are correct. They are crazy.

Yeah. And he sent a big memo to Hill and Giler, basically being like, you need to listen to Fincher. He's like not wrong in telling you all this stuff. But nonetheless, they basically go into production with an unfinished script. 45 pages of

a script, you know, that they've been fucking fighting over for 10 years practically. Fincher says he tried to quit on day one and his agent was like, you can't. You'll never work in this town again. Like, you just have to do it. And Fincher, as he talks about over and over again it's

just always i'll never do that again like i'll never start a production without a finished script without knowing exactly how much i'm gonna spend and how long it's gonna take and blah blah blah right yeah yeah uh supposed to be a 93 day shooting schedule the fox cut it to 70 days uh they wanted 50 special effects shots they gave him 25. So they did lots of 18-hour days to deal with that. Sounds fun. And, you know, it was incredibly stressful. Weaver, very positive about Fincher, just in general. And like always.

To see them work together now. Yeah, that's true. Good point. Yeah, it's kind of surprising for how highly they speak of each other in a bad uh like set of circumstances at the height of her powers in a way he's at the bottom but like she's just always been like it sucked making that movie but he was a total pro right and i think she and i like he felt the same way about her and they feel like they could do so much good shit together uh totally um jordan cronin whiff obviously is the

supposed to be the cinematographer he gets parkinson's disease is diagnosed with it a few weeks into production is replaced with alex thompson yeah uh so that's one issue i think that you don't want to run into he barely shot anything but he set the look yes that then was kind of iconic he cinematographer blade runner obviously, obviously, an iconic figure. This would have been his last film. Yeah. I mean,

he retired. He ends up not working yet. Yeah. And then, of course, obviously, his son becomes Fincher's DP

for many of his future films. But they talked about in the commentary how much they tried to establish this visual style of the camera

is often very low it's like sort of on the ground and especially within the prison the sets all kind of have this like slats and grading so they can light it from underneath rather than above and shoot up towards the ceiling which i do think psychologically creates such a different feel than the previous two alien movies where they're in very confined spaces you know where you're in low ceil movies where they're in very confined spaces, you know, where you're in low ceilings, where you're in ships, where you're in, like, hallways and shit like that. Like, the first scene where you see all the prisoners

sort of, like, debating about what to do about this woman who crash-landed, and the camera's basically going up all their nostrils, and they're being lit from under their chains. You're not wrong, yeah. And they're kind of looming, and they're kind of scary. Like, you know, you're like, who are these? You know,

how much do I trust these guys? That's the other thing is that, like, the other movies have been like, you got blue-collar grunts and then you have these evil corporate people, right? Yes.

And the greatest evil more than the aliens are these companies, these corporations. Oh, he's the great villain of all these movies. Right. And then this,

but they often present themselves at first as being friendly. And then this movie is starting out by introducing you to a bunch of guys and being like, these guys might be the problem. Sure. These guys might actually be the problem, and you're going to be on edge trying to figure out who can be trusted or who can't. Sure. Because you know all of them are here for a reason in a way. So it is very effectively disorienting at that opening section.

I think the cleverest thing is casting Dance because he is menacing. Right. He's so good. He's playing a good guy in this movie who is good. Yeah. And his motivations are good and then he gets his head bitten by the alien. It's already poked, I think. Yes.

And then he is deceased for the rest of the film and does not appear. And yet, even at the end of the movie, you're like, so is Dance on her side or not, though? Because you never know with that guy. Right. He's got a barcode in the rest of the film does not appear and yet even at the end of the movie you're like so it's dance on her side or not though because you never know with that guy right he's got a barcode in the back of his neck you don't understand exactly what he's doing there and then right at the moment you get the answer he's dead right you start like getting and it's almost in the theatrical cut it's almost exactly halfway through yes and and it's a great like shock moment i i one of the supplementary materials and i forget which one now uh i think it's one of the actors maybe is talking about how this like fincher would talk to him about his influence and be like well this is my hitchcock moment and he wouldn't say what the hitchcock

moment was but then i realized it's this right this is psycho killing janet lee right and even puts the the curtain there the shower curtain it's like god bless yeah it's like once you put all those pieces together it makes perfect sense the problem is is that he is so good in this movie and then you miss him after yeah the last hour of this movie he's gone yeah and yeah you there's a lot of other guys my old guys who sure don't really i mean my man dutton is fucking bench pressing million pounds yeah um but dance is just such an interesting a very alien character sort of similar to henriksen or ian holm where you're like this guy's sort of like soft and intelligent and a little dry in a

way that i can't trust inscrutable you're not entirely sure of his motives for a long time but it's a doubling down and she also does the dance well david she does the dance this is my point it's a doubling down of this movie is like bone deep cynicism right which is like you start out at such a bleak fucking point you place her in a really bleak environment and then here's this one glimmer of light and especially when you're watching the assembly cut it's an hour until he dies hour hour right i think that's another benefit of the assembly cut is just you get to take a few more dances which are all sure you do a couple you stick on the dance floor for a little bit longer yeah um but you're like oh there's this glimmer of hope this movie is almost nice as like someone finding love and connection

in the wake of like great great trauma right and then right at the moment where you feel like, is there a sliver? Maybe she's found someone again. Right. And it'll be okay. He's gone. Right. There's like nothing left for her.

It is crazy that she wakes up and they're like, so your friends are dead. Yeah. But lucky for you, you're in the worst place in the universe and no one ever comes here. Right. They hate women, by the way.

You're going to have to shave your head. You're going to have to shave your head because we have lice. You got to shave your head. But even that may not discourage the imprisoned rapists who are everyone who is here. Who haven't seen a woman in decades. Right.

And if you survive the rapists, don't worry, a lot of murderers in here too. Yeah, sure. Just general criminality, I suppose. So bad that they got sent. But they're also like, yeah, this used to be like a real place. We used to have thousands of people here. Well, thank you, I suppose. So bad that they got sent. But they're also like, yeah, this used to be like a real place.

We used to have thousands of people here. Well, thank you, Joe Biden. Right. But just the idea of like, these guys stayed. Yes, they chose. They really suck. They chose to stay. We said, this is horrible.

We can't do this anymore. And they're like, what? Basically like a cult of being awful. Well, they're kind of like the people who never left Chernobyl. Like, you know how everyone's like, well, Russia, you, Soviet Union evacuated that. But like, there's like 40 grandmas who are like, I'm not fucking going.

Who cares? So I get another head or whatever. Like, we're just going to tough it out. But I almost feel like these are people who self-identify as garbage and are just like, I should not be in general population um so yes so ripley is on uh what is the planet called fury fury uh yes 161 i wonder if that was a david toey contribution pretty because then we get to Furiosa Furia even Furiosa so yeah you've

got I guess so if we're talking about the cinematic cut of the movie the alien who is on the ship just like Ripley gets into a dog yes you're talking about the assembly cut it gets into an ox right because that's the other doesn't really

matter but it's just funny that it's different yeah i just like the the dog if i i really do have a preference here and it is the dog and i will tell you why it's just i agree with you that the dog makes more sense it makes more sense they set it up better in the in the assembly cut it's just like you see some ox corpse is cool yeah well you see on the beach when they're retrieving her body that everything's sort of oxen pole right right right but in the theatrical cut you see on the beach when they're retrieving her body that everything's sort of oxen poles. Right, right. But in the theatrical cut, you see the dog kind of barking and you see the facehugger looking. I just like, personally, I just love the idea of, again, David Fincher being this nasty, mean-spirited guy being like, you know how they say, like, you gotta save, don't kill the dog? Guess what we're gonna do? 20 minutes in.

We're gonna kill the dog. Yeah. And then if that's not bad enough, we're going to have a child autopsy on top of that. Two scenes later. It has the Thing vibes as well, obviously. Yeah, yes. The dog that's a problem. I like the oxen scene better.

It looks cool. It looks nasty and interesting. But it's certainly like, right. But you don't see the alien and then you go like, oh yeah, that's an ox. Huge oxen vibe. You're more like, that's kind of like a dog. That feels like that was the studio note of like,'re more like, that's kind of like a dog. That feels like that was the studio note of like, why is this an ox?

It behaves like a dog. People are going to be confused. Venture, goddammit. Right. No one knows what an ox is. That was a big thing, I think, from all these like aborted different drafts and everything. The toy line that comes out at the time of this movie is alien as 15 different animals. And they were like, oh, there was a point

where there was like girl alien, snake alien, like, you know, springboard. But then this, it's like, what are you looking for here? It's like four-legged

and it runs fast. Why the fuck are you making it an ox? Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure we can see if he had his reasons. But the first hour of this movie is pretty slow. Yep. even in the

theatrical cut i would say the alien's not getting up to much he throws one guy into a into a fan sure right well it's slow after he's killed off the like most of the cast for sure you know like the other the other i mean alien and aliens start very slowly too you gotta warm up the pot and with way less sort of horror and nightmare. It's, you know, like they're much more grounded and like detail oriented. This one,

it's like the opening credits, there's already aliens and face huggers and acid. That's true. And then it does slow down. Yes. But yeah,

you know, she's getting to know Dance who is Clemens. She's meeting, sort of meeting the other prisoners though they're mostly, she's mostly kept away from them,

I feel like. They're so busy reading. Right. Sure. You know, they're just such smart guys. They're not super... Lost in prayer. Exactly. They're praying. Yeah, they're just, they're very, like, in their own heads. Scholarly. Yes. Yeah, well, who've we got? We've got Dutton, who plays Dylan,

who's sort of the leader, the spiritual leader, who seems just like sort of like a rock-solid guy unlike pretty much anyone else. And the guy who kind of... Sort of burdened with unspoken guilt. I was going to say, where's his sins most heavily? Right. Yeah.

You've got Andrews, who is the warden, played by Brian Glover, who's just a classic fucker. Yes. You know, that guy is in like a gajillion british tv shows always is like you're like fuck that guy he was he was actually bald i think too like that's his yes he was a professional wrestler hell yeah uh he started out as the red devil and then he became leon eris the man from paris uh his catchphrase was ask him ref and how about that then um his kind of like famous performances i think the guy who warns them in the pub in american werewolf in london right

right um but they were talking about they shot this movie in london and pinewood and he was the guy that all the crew guys were like completely enamored with sure ledge an absolute ledge right uh he was the all-star on set you got ralph brown is 85 aaron they'll call him 85 got for his iq score yeah lower um who i feel like i best know is rick olier of course uh from phantom menace matt if you remember rick olier who could forget now that i didn't recognize him piloting to uh an Anakin yes now I see I'm looking at a picture of him yes and I believe he's the one who has one of my favorite lines in

Phantom Menace which is when the ship starts blowing up because Anakin's you know doing barrels inside of it or whatever they're like what's happening he says we didn't hit it and I'm like yeah you guys suck you sure didn't you guys do zero during this movie

he also I was re-watching Wayne's World You guys suck. You sure did. You guys do zero during this movie. He also, I was re-watching Wayne's World 2 and had forgotten that he's the roadie in that. Oh, that's right. He's really funny in it. Really? Because I was like, who's this fucking comedic all-star? The Brown M&M story. Yeah. I love that.

It's funny. I feel like we went hard on Rick Ollier back in the Phantom Podcast days. That's funny. Yeah, but you're also just like, this guy just feels like a placeholder and it's not, it's not fucking

Ralph Brown's fault at all, but you're like, there's no character written here and then you watch him in other shit and you're like, this guy has the ability

to pop. Oh, he's juicy. 85 is another character that supposedly Fincher and Fox were fighting over. He wanted him to be like dumber

to really play up the whole 85 is his IQ, this or that. He wanted him to be dumber, to really play up the whole 85 is his IQ. He wanted 72, Fox wanted 97. I will say, the 85 makes no sense. You're like, this guy seems perfectly smart. I don't really get why he's supposed to be dumb. You got Paul

McGann, the eighth doctor. I love to invoke that he's the eighth doctor. The lost doctor, basically. But an esteemed british actor from with nil and i and stuff uh as golic who's basically not in the theatrical cut at all right and is a major part of the assembly cut he's the crazy guy yes um who sort of worships the alien and keeps fucking things up for everyone else by like letting the alien go free right and then basically batting cleanup we have have Pete Possilthwaite, the greatest face in the history of cinema.

His character's name? Possilthwaite. Yeah. I love that. What are the odds? What a coincidence. And you've got Holt McElhaney. Who I always... As fucking Riddick.

Yeah. He's got the goggles. He's got the goggles. I'm always looking out for him, and I always, when he first shows up, go, I can't believe that's Holt McElhaney, because I just think of him as an absolute fucking brick wall of a man. and he looks leaner back then he looks real lean

and kind of baby faced yeah great in this great in fight club fincher fincher reliable yes yeah obviously yeah brings him in for mine um and then yeah that's pretty much and then he got a bunch of randos but i feel like that's Yes, it's a good group of guys. And Phil Davis is the best. I just rewatched, I have to say this, I'm so sorry. Please. 2005 miniseries Bleak House, adaptation of Dickens' Bleak House. Gillian Anderson.

Gillian Anderson and very many other people. Sure. And Phil Davis plays Mr. Smallweed, who is a moneylender, a villainous character. And he's always in a chair. He doesn't walk. He's always being lifted around.

And he's like one of the best characters. And whenever he's brought into the room, he goes, shake me up, Judy. He's got this lady who carries him. And she'll like pick him up by the shoulders and like shake him up to sort of like, you know. It sounds like Arrested Development.

It's genuinely those vibes. Just think about Dickens. You're just like, this man is wild. Shake me up, Judy. I want someone to fucking bring me in and room to room in a chair and ask him to shake me up. But I do think when this film was test screened uh a lot of you know audiences were like why are there eight english bald guys who i can't distinguish i mean i still think that when i watch it yes uh it definitely was a move to just be like yeah it's gonna be a bunch of dudes and they're almost all

english character actors we're not even really gonna you know you got charles dutton but apart from that not a lot of diversity. Right. They're all kind of similar ages. They're wearing the same clothes. Yeah. They have the same haircut. Yeah. Not even any tattoos, which would have been helpful to differentiate.

I hope McElhinney has like a little teardrop. Yeah. I think that's about it. That's about it. Obviously, they got the barcodes. Right. But they all got those. Let's hire like 15 Karen's boys, shave them all and put them in her lap they're they're just i just to me this is another classic fincher hostility gesture i don't hate it i just

understand a studio maybe i mean i think there are different ways you can defend it uh for sure but definitely one of them is just like as a like just a big fu to the I mean, I guess if you're paying a lot of attention and watching very closely. You watch it over and over. And you watch it over and over. With a guidebook in hand. Yeah, you can. But it does, I guess it does sort of make you pay attention. I guess they're banking on people watching it in mother mode where pop up style.

That's what they, as venture intended, which we said. This was the guy who was doing this in that other scene. points to people in those. As venture intended, which we said at the beginning. This was the guy who was doing this in that other scene. Um, so... I mean, Ripley being bald, which maybe you have to justify this way, 100%. It's an incredible move. Not only

just visually striking, like, it gives the whole Joan of Arc thing to the movie. Like, an undeniable uh, the look of her like that with the bald head you know even before the ending

where she's jumping into a vat of fire like it's it makes that it like sort of foreshadows that right from the get go and even the sort of like

the the ego soul death of the whole thing where it's like she's just removing everything she's just like a living skeleton

at this point almost like I feel like the shot of her... It is insane for her to film this six months after having a baby. It is. I mean, I wouldn't do it.

No. I mean, I guess she was paid like $10 million, but still. But to be fair, they did offer you $8 million six months after your daughter

was born to do Alien 5 and you said no. It was a bold move. It was a bold move. The shot of her, you know, sort of whimpering as the alien is inches from her face.

That happens right after Dan dies. Is that the most iconic shot in the alien franchise? I was making this argument to Marie Barty yesterday. It's up there. And obviously that's sort of a specific, you know, criteria. But single image? But it kind of is. Yes. criteria but but single image yes yes and her being bald is so crucial to her iconography even

though it's in the least liked right alien movie yes and i mean the other thing about the bald aspect of it especially and it it's it's like in that moment it becomes heightened is that from certain angles she has like this almost alien-esque presence now that she's bald and now that she's become potentially the mother of the new alien. She's already such a interesting physical presence. She's so tall and skinny.

But it's not just, well, she'll look striking and cool. There are many different ways to defend. I don't know about defending all the dudes being bald and hard to keep track of. But Ripley having that haircut

I think adds a lot to the movie on a bunch of different levels. That's the other thing. To get back to my point of this being a fascinating movie for her to make after she's had a kid that's so much being haunted by the loss of Newt. The other half of this movie is her realizing she is pregnant with a thing she absolutely does not want. Right. Absolutely. Like just two fascinating mental states for someone who just had a child.

And the weird, you know, it's a security blanket for her and also it's her death. Yep. Impending death. So she knows this is it. Right. In a way. It's the thing that's keeping her alive and the thing that makes her want to kill herself. I mean, it's what makes the most sense about the ending, which we can talk about, obviously,

which is just like they come to her and they're like, we can handle this. We'll take the alien out. You'll be fine. You'll go back and cry asleep. And at that point, I think everyone in the audience is like, not only do you not trust them, you're just like, you're just gonna fucking wake up back to more aliens. Right. It is time to end this. There is one way

this ends. Right. Like, that is actually a worse option than jumping into lava. Absolutely. Right? I'd choose the lava every time. No, I would go. I'd go. i love uh henriksen i just want to pal around with that guy um right yeah early in the film after the autopsy of newt and all this other grimness she does boot up henriksen a bishop i love this this weird you're into this i mean it's so good he's so gooey it's a beautiful one fucked up eye yeah the way he talks i mean just the best

trick in alien having the robot sort of half be able to talk yes ah so good um but this was like almost i it might have been a record number of servos within the face of this thing that makes sense and i do think the fact that it's like the thing is crashed and it's been a while and it's sort of deteriorated and all of that helps them because you're like well it's like the thing is crashed and it's been a while and it's sort of deteriorated and all of that helps them because you're like well it's a really good likeness and any part of it that's less animated than the real actor you saw in the last movie is like degradation of a broken robot i assume you're a henriksen guy man sure absolutely i mean yeah and he's awesome i mean you get both parts in this movie he's really good he's really good in both parts. And he's awesome. I mean, yeah, both parts in this movie, he's really good. He's really good in both parts.

I mean, he's also a reason. He like gives Alien vs. Predator a star by itself. Like he's just like a genre movie. Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame. When's the last time we've seen him? He's pretty old. That's why I'm asking.

He's 83 years old. Is he sort of soft retired? Unless he's doing direct-to-video. Oh, he's doing direct-to-video movies. Well, that's the answer. He is the narrator. He made five movies last year. He's the narrator of that Alien 3, like the audio drama, the William Gibson Alien 3 audio drama.

I like that. Yeah, he has... He has one gajillion credits on IMDb. Yeah, he's got a credit called Bring Me the Head of Lance Henriksen, in which he plays Lance. Good. Post-production, filmed in 2010. Can't wait for that to come out. I don't know if we're going to see that one. a credit called bring me the head of lance henriksen in which he plays lance good post production filmed in 2010 can't wait for that i don't know if we're gonna see that one no did you guys ever watch millennium no i know you were a big millennium guy right that's

that's that's a great era of tv where they're like i don't know put it on friday nights like and it's just like they would just air this shit it's so weird that show is demented um classic x-files blank checks type thing where he's like can i put my like weird sort of kind of illuminati conspiracy theories with like dark violence on friday nights and they're like anything you want yes it's sort of vaguely i x-files connected great let's do it uh i also want to i do want to read this quote this is from uh rick birnbaum who was in charge of Fox at the time uh he said well first uh you could have someone piss against the wall for two hours and call it Alien 3 and it would do 30 million dollars I mean and then he later said I can

release a 15 minute black screen and it would do 15 which I don't think is the right attitude for them to have, to be clear. Like, they do have this power of like, why do you care? It doesn't matter. We already opened the movie. It's called Alien 3. Students used to have more contempt for the people who went to go see the movies than the people who made the movies. Right. There's a flip now where now they're just like, well, the audience is king.

Fuck you, you shitty writers. How dare you have an idea. Right. So what happens next in Alien 3? It's kind of a plot light movie in a way. Right. Very much so. They just are here.

They're in this shitty place. And then there's one alien. Yes. Which I think is the right move. Yeah. You're back to the sort of original alien slasher vibes of people getting picked off one by one. This is a unique alien, though. This is a dog it's it's a doggy alien uh it's it's a nasty little freak but i feel like the kills in this movie aren't even that insane no the guy getting fan chopped is kind of cool

but that's the first that's the first one one yeah and after that i mean the dance scene is awesome but you're but then it does become even as cool as some of the um pov shots are it does get a little repetitive when he's just kind of picking off bald guys right in those tunnels like brian glover getting sucked into the sort of ceiling is like a fun jump but it's not actually like a sort of graphic kill or anything. And then after that, I couldn't even tell you. I'll say... I mean, Charles Dutton's death is very triumphant and tragic, but that doesn't even really involve the alien. I do feel the repetition of the environment too, right?

Yeah. Where you're just like, you know, who ended up being the DP on this movie who replaces Cronenworth? His name is Alex Thompson. He's best known for Excalibur. So he was talking about he entered into this. Cronenworth had set everything up and everything had been art directing. He's just jumping into an already moving train, right?

And he was like, I was very appreciative that David had already designed this movie where everything was gray because I hate white walls and they sort of sting the light and they bounce the light back off. And it's hard to light actors against white walls and whatever. And it was really good for sort of absorbing the light and letting me focus on the actors. And you were like, right, but the entire movie, especially when you're not on the assembly cut, you don't have the brief glimpse of the outside world. Yeah, there's no pops of color or light. Right. It's either gray or you're in like the furnace.

The furnace. And then it's sort of lit with like red diarrhea. Yeah. Right. A sort of rust color. It's a dirty furnace. Yes.

What do they make? They make like metal sheets or whatever? Yeah. Covers for toxic waste containers. Right. And I think- They're basically like a box factory.

Yes. I think these sets are great, but you also feel in a movie where it's mostly just about people continually getting hunted down by the alien and hallways you're like so they have like one hallway they keep shooting from different angles right yep yeah yes i do think that's what was going on over at old pinewood studios it's like how freaks and geeks or any high school they really just had the once the you know hallway yeah you know right exactly and you just kind of move it around yeah um

because yeah you in in look in the uh in the theatrical cut they're basically just like let's hurt him down there and get him yes in the assembly cut they do that lock him down there then he gets unlocked by paul mcgann right re-escapes and then they do it again right it really just kind of drags it out more which is the understandable objection that i think is the smartest lift right that they kind of clean that up in any description of like the changes that's always like well this is the biggest change but i think it speaks to the fact that you can remove that entirely from the movie and basically right and some people say well that character the gola character

sort of interesting concept right but again the everyone everyone except a handful are so interchangeable anyway like do you really like i always i never realized he vanished because they all look alike to me anyway so like i just assumed he was one of the bald dudes that got killed like i didn't know he's like i feel like they do better versions of him later. Like, with the David character in the Ridley Scott movies. Yes, yes. Of this guy who's like, I kind of worship the alien because it's so beautiful and strange. Yes.

And it's not for profit motive. I'm just kind of like, hot damn. That thing's crazy. Right. And, like, it's a fun thing to float. But I think even in the assembly cut Where you get his full arc He's mostly an irritant He's not really a full arc

Yes And there's Let's see there's the sequence where she gets her Chest scanned To find that she has an alien Queen inside of her Fellas don't you hate it when that happens It sucks

But her learning that there's an alien from bishop from the remains of bishop yeah and her learning that she has an alien inside her are things the audience has already figured out yeah way yes way before they draw these reveals out another benefit to theatrical version is just like i think the audience puts it together very quickly and beyond that it helps to make the movie a little shorter because once these two realizations are in place, you're like she must die. Right. Right. You're like we're prolonging the inevitable.

This is another also an element where it feels like where we've made a movie out of 10 pieces of five movies. Yes. Where it's like sometimes this spaceship they crash landed on is so destroyed. She needs to like find the remains of Lance Hendrickson in a garbage pile and like jury rig away to talk to him. What's going on, buddy? And then later in the movie she goes into the remains of the ship to like scan her body and it works perfectly. I know. And you're like, wait.

Why is there an MRI machine in here? That still works. I know. I know. Right. And that's one of the things where they're like well we need you know it's like it's necessary for the story and it's like where you feel the fact that they

did not have a script and they're just kind of filming scenes and then it would be funny if they woke Hendrickson up and he was like are we on the wood planet and she's like no they fucking cut that god damn that sounded so cool so they do have a triumph.

And I do think it's important that they have their triumph. They kill the alien, right? That they douse it in steel. They smelt him. And then they cover him in water and he shatters. Yes. It's an inventive death. Yes.

And Charles Dutton gets this big moment of like, you know, do it. He's down there and he's yelling, bellowing away. And Charles Dutton gets this big moment of like, you know, do it, you know. He's down there and he's yelling, bellowing away. He doesn't want to kill or he doesn't want Sigourney to die. Yes. And he's like, you can't die yet. You go up ahead. Right.

And then he's like, he just lets the alien kind of kill him. Yes. He sort of keeps the alien down there so they can don't steal all over it. And I always wonder if they're just gonna, if the whole thing is, anyway. It's a fair question, but they do need to kill

the alien, I suppose, because if the bishop and the company showed up and the alien was still alive, they would be like, great, we'll take it. Absolutely. I always just wonder,

why doesn't he let her be the bait? It's a fair question. Because it would kind of kill, literally kill two birds with one stone. He seems, one, both burdened with so much guilt over

whatever he's done, ready to die. And two, he likes her, I guess. But everything you're saying is a hole I might poke in this airtight screenplay. Griffin. Yes. I don't know if you're looking at anything

particular, but the ending of this movie is pretty great. Yes. I don't know if you're looking anything particular up, but the ending of this movie is pretty great. Yeah. I have no beef with the final showdown. That's what I was looking up. Before we get to that, I think it's what I like about Dutton's performance so much, right? Yeah, you love Dutton. And Charles S. Dutton is a man who served time in prison.

Yes. Right? There is like a verisimilitude to this performance and is a guy who like had discovered theater and acting when he was in prison and was a man who came out

a very different person than he entered in. Right? So you can read all about Charles Dutton's like life and, you know, his conviction of manslaughter in the 60s and all this.

Yes. It's fascinating. Fascinating life. Yes. But this is the one guy who it feels like he needs to spend the rest of his life atoning for what he's done wrong. Which, do we even know what it is? He has the one line. This is what I was looking up.

She said, I want to say thanks for what you said at the funeral. My friends would have appreciated it. Right. Right. Because he sort of gives the... Eulogy. Thank you. Good Lord.

Right. For Newton Hicks. And he says, yeah, well, you don't want to know me, lady. I'm a murderer and a rapist of women. Right. That's his one comment. Which don't know if that's right. In the assembly cut, Hope McElhinney tries to assault Ripley.

Yes. That's not in the theatrical cut, right? Or, no, no. I'm sorry. It's his sacrifice that's not in the theatrical cut. Right. He has this moment midway through the movie where he, like, distracts the alien.

Yeah. No, no. But the assault is still in there. Yeah. I always forget. Yeah. But I think there's the difference of, like, as we said,

these are all the guys who chose to stay, right? Who are like, we belong here. We don't belong anywhere else. And I think for the other guys, it's a little bit more of like, we actually maybe enjoy being in a society that is somewhat lawless, where you are amongst your own kind, right? your own kind right and and dutton is sort of like he is the moral one uh who is just mostly there as means of like self-flagellation is that fair to say like it feels like his worldview is like i do not deserve to engage with people anymore not that i feel more comfortable than it and i think his whole fight with ripley wanting to kill herself is this idea of just like that's not the way to punish yourself, right? The way to punish yourself is to live and to be a better person. But he's viewing the prism of her wanting to live or not via entirely her own suffering versus the idea of like this loop she's caught in, right? Especially when she knows she has the baby inside of her it's a little baby yeah um what's her big line she has uh where is it uh

when i don't know sorry when when they're talking uh when they first heard about this thing it was crew expendable the next time they sent Marines, they were expendable too. What makes you think they're going to care about a bunch of lifers who found God at the ass end of space? You really think they're going to let you interfere with their plans for this thing? They think we're crud. And they don't give a fuck about one friend of yours that's died, not one. Sure. It's like that's where she's at at the end of this, which is just like no human is respected.

Right. No human is respected. What company is she talking about there exactly the one in the movie or i met metatextually outside the movie yes yes right it's just like whatever it takes to get it done and i think she understands that like not by choice but she has become complicit in the cycle of this thing right yeah um so the ending is the waylon yutani commandos come out with these puffy they just look cool they look fucking cool it's just such a great i just love them i love waylon yutani they're very like mobius isn't that what noah holly's show is kind of about or something

right like i that's the whole i get it yeah like i get the idea of like let's what's up with these freaks it's probably a bad idea because they're probably best as this thing you ladle out. Unseen, yes. Just a little bit of. Right. And even, I love the Prometheus and Covenant. I'm a huge defender of those movies, but the more you hear about the company in them, the worse. You don't really need much of that. A little goes a long way.

But just them showing up in hazmat suits and weird goggles. But they're like pillow hazmat suits. Yes. And they're just like, where's Ripley? Hey! And then Bishop being there and him being like, I'm the real Bishop. I'm not a robot.

I'm the real Bishop that the robot Bishop was modeled after. But I'm here to be a friendly face and just to give her the... And you're like, I mean, the joy of it is you're just like,

I don't even know if he's the real Bishop. Right. Yeah. Like, either is possible. Either is possible. Both are bad. When she attacks him, there's this prosthetic of his ear sort of falling off yes and it doesn't have the

classic milk blood right but it also doesn't look doesn't look human yes which is perfect and it's one of those things it could just be makeup that's weird or it could be a robot right and a more advanced robot in the time since she's gone into cryo sleep they don't have milk blood anymore now they look more realistic. Now they're more Terminator-y or whatever. But it does speak to that point where it's like, it doesn't fucking matter. You know? Yeah.

When she's at this point having the conversation with him, it's like, nothing means anything to me anymore. I don't care if you're a robot or you're a human who reminds me of the robot I used to know. Which, by the way, doesn't really make sense. How long was she in cryo sleep? She's only been in cryo sleep for a little while, right? For this one? I don't know that they say exactly. They may not say it. They make a big deal

in the second movie how long she was asleep. Oh, it's been 80 years or whatever. I think this one is supposed to be faster. But I don't know. I don't know. Just like, how would the guy who made Bishop look like himself? How old would he be now? I see what you're saying.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like, is Bishop a top-of-the-line model in aliens? It's a great question. All questions. Obviously, the joy of the aliens world is also, we don't understand what technology is like. Right. People might live 400 years in the fucking alien world. Right.

The outside world is so unknown to us. Especially rich people. Right. You don't know. You don't know. The whole joy of aliens is you never know right you're always on the fringes of whatever society they're in yeah there's always this concept that you sort of get of like there must be rich fabulous wealth right and we're just like all the way over here right like we're always at the edge of it it's my favorite franchise matt i don't know how you feel about aliens it's it's up there it's Matt, I don't know how you feel about Aliens.

It's up there. It's way up there for me. Even though it's constantly fucked with. Yes. Yeah. And often disappointing. Although I love the Ridley Scott sequels. Yeah. Wrigley Scott. Wrigley Scott. Yeah. Big League Scott. Yeah. So she kills herself.

She kills herself. In the theatrical cut, the alien bursts out of her. Right. And she sort of goes, or whatever. Pushes it back in. I don't recall the noise, but yes, the sentiment is there. And then in the assembly cut, she just dies in this more Christ-like kind of just pose. Yeah. And the assembly cut has that sort of closing montage.

Is that in the original cut? It's in the other one, too. Which is quite nice of like just doors closing and her sign off. This is what I have on my mic arm here is the thing from the theatrical cut,

which is, it's supposed to be a queen chestburster. Uh-huh. Cool. Right, which is what's coming out of her. Right, right.

So it's not just that she has any alien inside of her, but she has the one that's gonna... doesn't want to kill her, right? Yeah, yeah. It's a good ending, if nothing else. I'm not sure people were walking out of the theater

thrilled to see that that had happened, but it's very effective. Wouldn't you love to go back and see how people walked out of the theater on this one? I truly would. And we're going to do the box office game, and everything else in theaters right now, fun for the whole family by and large and then

it's just like by the way fucking alien 3 if you want to be bummed out and whipped with chains and again that's part of the to me that's part of the appeal is that is the you know like god bless the sequels that are just like you know what forget it you know like oh you like these movies guess what we hate them and we're done with them that's my thing i will basically never not love this movie anytime i am actively re-watching and i'm like middle sags more than i remember it does kind of lose its way you're yeah there's things but the opening i find so strong in both versions and the ending is just incredible and i'm just like the the the basic attitude of this movie to its uh position of being the third film in a beloved franchise. And it sort of responds to that pressure.

I just adore it. And I do think even despite all the problems he had making it and hating it and, you know, now he wants nothing to do with it and he won't go back and work. Like, there is some sort of kernel of fincheriness that is in this movie. And all of that that all that hostility and anger there is nothing anonymous about this film right if this movie was directed by fucking robert longo or whoever right and like you're like yeah he never really did much what a weird thing it would it would be way less interesting yeah it's like the seeds of fincher it is yeah is so much more interesting right what's the line about the line about in every seed there is the promise of a flower, they say in this movie.

Wow. Think about it. We've covered a lot of first films where you're like, this director kind of has a worldview, but they maybe haven't crystallized how to express it yet, and they don't have command of the language of film enough yet to get the ideas across, right? You see the little glimmers, but this thing is very primordial. And this is almost an opposite example of, like, the guy

had the full tool set, but was not given the reign to do it. Or the time, or the money, or the... Right, right. But it's all in there, and so much of the stuff that all the different guys mushed together in that commentary track, Matt kept on saying, is, like, we were just really impressed

day after day how much this young guy was really fighting to make things the way he wanted right you know you just kept expecting you've seen this before

these guys roll over they fold they give up at some point right because it's easier right and even as much as he's just like I lost it

I lost this movie I can't re-watch it you're like the whole thing looks like a Fincher movie the whole thing feels like a fincher movie it is not at the level of excellence that he hits later yeah sure oh but his fingerprint is on every single aspect of the film the control freakery you hear about right i'm sure if i sat him down and watched it one he would just shoot me in the face yes uh for making him do that yeah uh but two like the second he sees the rod puppet not looking right he would just shoot me in the face yes uh for making him do that yeah uh but two like the second he sees the rod puppet not looking right he would just be like ah jesus christ you

know like you know because that's his reputation right there's uh i'll talk about in the panic room episode but there's like a feature where you can watch most of the movie pre-viz and that was like the most thoroughly pre-viz movie at that point in time right and there's a a clip uh one of the behind the scenes features that is them screening the previs for him on like you know like a 10 by 10 like crt monitor right and he's standing like two inches away from it and they're playing the previs in real time and he is non-stop just going like that needs to be two inches lower you need to come in 10 degrees that way this needs to be five degrees brighter. You need to come in 10 degrees that way. This needs to be five degrees brighter. Like every single image, he never stops talking over the cuts, over the movements, over everything.

And it's like he's saying like close, but, you know, no, it's a great job. That was great. He's not waiting for it to be finished to give his notes in real time like a computer. He is processing everything that is like a millimeter incorrect with it. I just like that every, you know, maybe not everything, but so much of what this movie is, I think we've said, it's not perfect. There's problems. Not perfect. But so many of the things that we have praised and like about it, like, come directly from him. You know what I mean?

Yes. Like, his fingerprints are so much the stuff, the good stuff in this movie. Absolutely. His fingerprints are so much the stuff, the good stuff in this movie. Absolutely. I want to tell you that when he finished the film, he showed it to Joel Schumacher, who he says is one of the most gregarious and studio-politically astute people. Savvy, yes. Makes sense. I met Joel Schumacher, and you certainly always hear, oh, he's a real sweetie, nice man.

You met him, of course, and you had a bizarre audition experience with him. Again, not criminal, just a weirdo. You've told the story many times. I'll tell the one-sentence version of it, which is I asked him a question about interpretation of the scene, and his response was, I find that acting is similar to sex. If you ask people if you're doing it right,

you're probably not doing it right. Right, which is clever. And you say you ask if you're doing it right all the time. I said I constantly asked her in sex if I'm doing it right. Okay. You are not cast in my movie. But it was one of his worst movies. It was one of his worst.

I auditioned five times for that fucking movie. Is it 12? Is that what it's called? Yes. Yes. Yeah. He shows Joel Schumacher Alien 3

and this is when Joel Schumacher is a pretty big deal. Sure. And Joel Schumacher's like, first of all, this movie is okay. Like, it's not as bad

as you think it is. That's nice. The good news is you're aiming high. The bad news, of course, is that means you're going to be disappointed. You're an overachiever. You're miserable. Number two is you put yourself in a position where they have more power than you because you care and they don't. Right. I mean, it actually sounds like he's actually diagnosed the whole movie and what happened very well. And he basically tells them, like, you just can't do this again.

Like, if you want to make a movie, you just cannot be in that position again. You're going to be unhappy. It already probably haunts Fincher anything he rewatches in his own work where he's like, that isn't what I want it to be because of technical limitations or me just having the wrong view at the moment. Right. Yes. I mean, what he can't live with is watching it and going, like, I know how this should have been done,

and they wouldn't let me. He'd rather fail by his own failing. He's, at the point the movie comes out, I think he's about 30 or 29 or 30, and he's probably thinking, like, I'm going to be seen as the fucking 20-something. They gave $50 million to make an Alien sequel, and I fucking shat the bed.

The guy who screwed up Alien. Exactly. Early 90s, there's already this wave of, like, thing they gave 50 million dollars right to make an alien sequel and i fucking shat the bed the guy who screwed up exactly early 90s there's already this wave of like these music video directors are all flash and substance and they get a movie and they have nothing to say like i will just be seen as like the mad enfant terrible right oh they never should have given the fucking vogue video director you know the keys to the kingdom it's not really until like later you know until seven and then spike jones that people are like okay i guess good directors can come out of music videos right uh here's a great quote from paul mcgann who said there were more producers around than actors it's like having a fucking audience for every scene uh so you know vibes

on set were really bad um is there anything else interesting in here? Obviously, he asked to do six weeks of reshoots. Fox gave him eight days. Jesus. So, they basically, as is classic with reshoots of these kinds of movies, they were like, more scares, please. Can you just shoot some scares? Like, you know, get this nastier.

Whereas now it feels like most blockbusters, the reshoots last longer than principal photography right and there was a whole thing with this movie i know about with the hair the hair again because she had grown her hair back this bald pat cap that was complicated it was like well but it was like if she if she had to cut her hair again for any reason they owed her right they had to pay her more yeah and any reason. They owed her, like, 40 grand. They had to pay her more. So instead, they paid, like, 20 grand to make the world's most advanced makeup bald cap. And then they needed to use it again, and they were like, shit, did we throw that away? And then they, like, found it in some pile.

It changes the whole shape of someone's skull at that point. Yeah, it's fucking insane. If you're putting baldness over tucked away hair. Yeah. Obviously, advertising campaign for this movie is incredible. The bitch is back and all that. You know. Cubed.

Alien cubed. This film did get an Oscar nom for visual effects. Uh-huh. Lost to Death Become Her. Yeah. Which has very iconic visual effects. Visual effects. Was seen as more revolutionary.

It was nominated alongside Batman Returns as well. Okay. Schumacher. It came out on May 22nd, 1992. The other great tagline, I'm sorry, is just this time it's hiding in the most terrifying place of all. Ripley. Well, that's the thing.

I think that going into the movie, you're like prison. Oh. And then the answer is her womb. We didn't even mention like my single favorite part of the movie, which is the opening logo with that music sting oh like they don't give you the end of the 20 it's so good so good so good not just for this movie but i feel like also for fincher it feels like a perfect like how many fincher movies could start with that right sting just a lot of them so cool yes and it also and

the opening credits are cool Yeah I feel like it's right before they switch over to the CGI 20th Century Fox logo Yes, it's the painted logo It feels late for the painted logo It does Yeah Anyway, Elliot Goldenthal

Elliot Goldenthal's score for this is great Amazing Elliot Goldenthal, I'm a huge defender of his 90s scores They are operatic and intense I love his Joel Schumacher Batman scores I love his Heat score I don't know where he went I know he's Julie Taymor's husband

And he's around I guess He does like opera and stuff But like he had a real fun run in the 90s Yes where he was becoming sort of Elfman style and unconventional blockbuster Composer A guy with a weird background who was fitting really well into these large movies and giving them a little more personality.

Since Public Enemy, he's just done Julia Taymor's movies. Yeah. Yeah. He did Our Souls at Night as well. He has a good quote on, I think it's on the documentary where he says that Fincher, like when, for the beginning of the movie, like how to design the music, he said, Fincher told him he wanted him, you

to feel, you the audience you to feel you the audience to feel you were completely fucked within five minutes and that there is no hope completely yeah mission accomplished mission accomplished um this film opens a disappointing number two uh 23 million dollars not bad for a rated movie in 1992 uh it makes opens to 23 but only makes 54, which is pretty poor legs for the time. But it did make $158 million worldwide, which is similar to Aliens. It just made most of it overseas. It did well overseas.

Overseas, I think they truly had the vibe of like, we could piss against the wall. It's seven years later, so the money is going a little... A little less far. Inflation. But it is certainly seen as a bomb. Yeah. What is beating it,

Griffin? It's an action sequel holding onto the number one spot with, in my opinion, the greatest poster of all time. Oh, uh, it's Lethal Weapon 3. That's right.

The magic is back again. The magic is back again. With, uh, is it, with Joe Pesci poking his head out. Right. That is a good poster.

There's Pesci. Yeah. Ben, Ben, look at Pesci. Ben, look at Pesci poking his head out. That is a good poster. There's Pesh. Ben, look at Pesci. Ben, look at Pesci, please. There he is. Take a peek at the Pesh. That is a good poster. That's great. Just the idea of like,

they're just like, just run back the fucking Lethal Weapon 2 poster, but just get Pesci in there. Magic is back again. And right, yeah, the magic is back. Did they even take a new picture of Glover? They might not have. They took the old pictures,

they printed them out on cardboard, and they had Pesci show up in studio and stand behind the cardboard stand. The Magic is Back Again. 3, I couldn't tell you much about that one.

That's the one I haven't seen. It's the one with the most Pesci. That's for sure. Right. I've seen 1, 2, and 4. I haven't seen 3.

It is Donner. Is that the one where they introduce Rene Russo's character? They're all Donner. Yes. They're all Donner. You're right. where they introduce Rene Russo's character? Yes. Okay. They're all Donner.

You're right. So he, that's, I mean, that's all I could tell you about it is that she has the relationship with Gibson and like she's, what is she, an internal affairs agent maybe? She's in four. She comes back in four. I think they might get married or she's pregnant. I think she gets pregnant. Pregnant maybe?

Yeah. Four is about will he settle down? Right. Right. Yes. Four is about will he settle down Right Four is a wild movie Well four is just where they're just like Chris Rock do five minutes Like right where they're just like I don't know Let's just do stupid shit They may have had less of a script than Alien 3

When they started that one There's a true example of Warner Brothers being like we fucked up We have no summer movie Like shit right just get the magic back again again Right and they basically like started filming In march and the movie came out in july and the trailer ends with like chris rock direct to camera being like lethal weapon four in theaters it's me mel gibson like just doing bits to camera man because they just like they had shot four days at that time being like well dig it please what is this is this? It looks incredible.

Lethal Weapon 3, number one. Alien 3, number two. Number three, there are three movies opening this week that are big. This is a treacly romantic drama. Is it Dying Young? No. Am I in the right ballpark? What would the ballpark be for Dying Young? No. I mean, that's a Joel Schumacher movie.

Oh, right. Because there's a differentel schumacher movies oh right because there's a different joel this summer uh okay yes um it's i would say it's like arguably the worst film in this guy's career apart from like some of the shit he made recently ish so is it a rob reiner no no i mean the star is the director is a hollywood journeyman who still works to this day. He's made good movies. He's made bad movies. He's won an Oscar. Ron Howard? Ron Howard. Is it Far and Away? Far and Away! Far and Away!

It's the Tom Cruise movie where I'm just like, you don't need to see it. Not even if you're a complete artist. I don't think I ever have. I'm trying to think. It stinks. It's Far and Away, his worst movie. And they're all doing the fucking accent. The accent. The accent.

Great. I should have remembered because I did watch the Siskel and Ebert review and they're coming up next and they show like a clip of Tom Cruise with the accent and I was like, hey, yay, yay. It's at the level of when I do an accent without any prep at the opening of this episode. It is exactly that. Yeah. And it's also just one of those movies where you're like, why did this come out in May?

Like, you know, this is like a sort of Tony Oscar. Cruz and Kidman. Cruz and Kidman were so, had so much juice. It has the stupidest fucking title. Far and away. Far and away. It's not based on anything. Just some asshole wrote a fucking script.

Wow. That is a perfect example. Take that, writers. Someone on Reddit was poking this up again, but movies that feel like they were based on books. Right, but it's not. How is this not based on some fucking book? Some guy's like, I don't know, Irish immigrants.

It should be based on something. You are right about that. Some asshole just sat down and typed exterior Ireland. Far and away. Now, number four at the box office, a film I think Ben probably enjoys. Dennis the Madness? No, comedy film.

Okay. Starring a recent Oscar winner. Okay. How many films are in it? Sort of a fish out of water film. Fish out of water film. 1992. Will it spoil it to say what water the fish is in?

He's in California. What the dry land is. California. Modern day California. Is it Encino, man? Encino. Great fucking movie. Masterpiece. in uh or what what california land is california modern day california in seno man in seno they dug up a band yeah it's brendan frazier and someone's backyard do you remember the sequel tease at the end of that movie barry jeans comes from subconsciously yeah no man going yeah do you remember the the like the tease at the end of that movie ben no so the way they realize that he's come back to life is they like get home i think they're looking for wherever the buried ice block was or whatever

right right and then they see like his handprints and face print that are muddy on the side of their giant like glass picture windows of their suburban home. And they're like, fuck, he's out, he's escaped, right? Right. At the end of the movie, there's a thing where they get back to the home and they think everything's settled or whatever. And then they see a similar print,

but it also has boobs. Yes. Oh, yes. And they're like, and she's no woman? Woman. And I remember watching it and then turning to my dad and, like, on TV, you know, on TBS or whatever, and going, so did they make a sequel?

Are they going to make a sequel? Because I was just so into the idea that her boobs were out. The implication. The sequel will address this. The sequel will start with top nudity? Yeah. Yeah. Encino man famously in Britain was called California man.

I was just looking at Wikipedia. Because I think they were like, no one in Britain knows who fucking Encino is. You can't call a country after like a neighborhood, basically. Look at this poster. It's a great poster. It's where the Stone Age meets the Rock Age. I have so many comic books from the 90s because I was a comic book reader as a child. This was a classic movie poster and comic book. There was an ad for encino man in every one of them yes just it was like it was like if

no one else you're coming to see this and i and guess what i did i sure did no matt you said where the stone age meets the rock age we should acknowledge this is a classic uh three taglines poster oh wait the second tagline is a chillin' new comedy in full Neander vision. Very good. And then the third tagline is thawing this summer at a theater near you.

Absolutely. I like that they spelled theater T-H-E-A-T-R-E. I do too. Classy. Theater. Classy. Obviously,

Encino Man came up because Brendan Fraser and Keiho Kwon are both in it. Yes, that's right. It came up a lot during the Oscar season. Brendan Fraser, good in Encino Man. Great in Encino Man. Number five of the box office,

one of the biggest hits of the spring, now summer. We've covered it on this podcast. We've covered it on this podcast. What genre is the picture? Thriller. Is it Point Break? No, it's an erotic thriller. Is it Basic Instinct?

Basic Instinct. Has made $100 million in 10 weeks. A real hit. It's more than I make in a month. Yeah. Hit. Yes. Basic Inst Hit. Yes. Basic Insane.

You've also got another film I'm sure Ben likes at the time, Beethoven. Yeah. That dog too big. It big. Groden too grumpy. Dog too big, Groden too grumpy. Everyone drooling.

Yeah. The head of the family is the one with the tail. Who slobbers more, the dog alien or Beethoven? Close. Very close. You've also got Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which seems to have been pushed back into theaters many weeks later on a thousand screens. You've got Robert Altman's The Player.

A masterpiece. Absolutely. You've got Ron Shelton's White Man Camp Jump. Pretty good movie. A pretty fucking fantastic movie. And you've got a little comedy by the name of Wayne's World. Oh, God. Ben is freaking so... That's just what I'm saying.

Yeah, for real. Seriously, you could just be bouncing between Encino Man and Beethoven and Wayne's World. I'm just taking one hot VHS tape after another, throwing it to the side. They're smoking. Ejecting them like a fucking bullet cartridge.

What week is Wayne's World in? Wayne's World is in its 15th week. Wow. Because that did not come out in the summer. No, that was like a Feb release? Yes, it's made $113 million and it's got $7 million more to make. It's not done. What a picture.

It is a great film, Wayne's World. I think it is truly a perfect movie. I think Wayne's World 2 is funny, stupid bullshit, but I think Wayne's World 1 is great. I think Wayne's World 2 is a great American film. Oh, you think Wayne's World 2 is a great American film? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I think Wayne's World 1 is...

2 is pretty dumb, right? Yes, 2 is dumb. But it's funny. It's got some stuff in it. It's fun. It's got fun stuff in it. It's funny. It's got Charlton Heston. That always makes me laugh. Wayne's Stock.

Wayne's World 1 is profound. Yeah. I think Wayne's World 1 rules. Our friend of the show, Rob Shear, posited a question that has stuck with me, and I think he might be right. You're like, is Wayne's world the only

like mainstream studio comedy in basically a 20-year span the 10 years before and after sure that has no gay bashing in it they do because even bill and ted has that moment we like god damn it yeah there's almost always the one or there's a moment where gay characters introduced and they sort of like side-eye the camera. Sure, there's some. I mean, I look, I can't. This is not a science. I can't look.

But no, it's common that there are jokes in comedies from the 90s and 80s that make your head hurt. I think starting in the 80s into the late 2000s. Now, Waynesboro does have What's His Pants Always Gone. Oh, you man. But I think that's so funny. I don't think that's funny. No, I know. And it's like you can't say, like, thank you.

You have to say, I know, or whatever, right? Like, I can't say stuff. That's my thing. You watch that movie and you're just waiting for, like, what's the thing that's aged poorly? And basically none of it has. Yeah. I literally, when I saw that. Rob Lowe's in it?

Aged perfectly. When I saw that movie in the theater i literally laughed so hard i actually fell out of my chair like that cliche i literally laughed so hard i fell out of my chair that's my memory with the product placement right first of all some fell out of my chair in the theater do you know who's so fucking funny in wayne's world everybody yes uh ed o'neill ed o'neill ed o'neill he's so funny yeah yeah that's a thing thing. Stan Makeda's Donuts. That always got me the most. I was watching.

Stan Makeda's Donuts. His monologue. Such a Chicago joke. Yes. Yeah, his monologue, yeah. No, I was watching, because we recently lost him, but there was a really good YouTube cut of Alan Arkin's entire uncredited performance, and so I married an axe murderer. Oh, yeah. Alan Arkin's entire uncredited performance, And So I Married an Axe Murderer, which is basically like nine minutes, three scenes, is a perfect comedic game across three beats that is just like a master class.

And you're like, there's that thing in the fucking Mike Myers movies when he was cooking where he could give Ed O'Neill four minutes to just eviscerate. And not just eviscerate, but be like, there's an entire world here. This guy could be his whole movie, and instead we're just getting this little glimpse into this life. Did you watch The Pentavrit? I watched The Pentavrit. I tried to.

And you tapped out on that one? I think I watched one episode. I think I made it to the end of the first episode. I watched all of The Pentavrit because it came out the day after I tested positive for COVID. And I would say the Pentavrit was the second worst thing that happened to me that week. Okay, good.

In terms of like harm to my body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who, and then we should be done. Who has more money? Mike Myers, who made Wayne's World and Austin Powers. And Shrek. And Shrek. And Shrek.

Actually, Shrek probably ruins it. I forgot about Shrek. Or, but I just want to say, or Ed O'Neill, who's on and Austin Powers. And Shrek. And Shrek. And Shrek. Actually, Shrek probably ruins it. I forgot about Shrek. Or, but I just want to say, or Ed O'Neill, who is on two sitcoms that have been syndicated out the ass for like 10 seasons apiece.

Yes. It might be, it still might be close. It's probably Mike Myers because of Shrek. I forgot that Shrek, the paydays are so massive and then the residuals

and like, you know. Right, that was the thing. That was like the one time where they paid out the nose for the voice talent and gave them really fucking good deals um ed o'neill is just one of those guys where you're like does that guy live on the moon like he must be so rich they also talk about because everyone else was pretty untested modern family the top paid performer on modern family he basically always was and even when they all negotiated together are you looking up the unreliable?

Celebrity Network pegs him at 65. And he's always right. And always right. And Myers at 200. So Myers... I forgot about Shrek. Yeah. You can't really beat Shrek.

I think Shrek's the big thing. And the other difference is that Mike Myers has underlying ownership of those characters. Yeah. He's got all kinds of stuff going on. He's an all-star, so to speak. Right. I know. He puts the show on and gets paid. Might as well be walking on the sun. He's got all kinds of stuff going on. He's an all-star, so to speak. Right. I know.

He puts the show on, he gets paid. Might as well be walking on the sun. It's a different Smash Mouth song. Yeah. My Spotify recently served that one up. Now I'm a believer. And I was like, wait, you think I want to... Fuck.

You know when Spotify is like, we're just playing. You want Walking on the Sun by Smash Mouth? And I'm like, no. What did I do? What? Hey, you piece of shit. You want this fucking garbage?

I don't. Because our computer knows you better than we do and we're telling you you want this shit. Alright. That's it. We're done. We've wasted enough of Matt's time. Thank you for coming here, Matt. Right here. On your desk.

On our desk. Where's the camera so I can point it Matt. Right here. Oh, yeah. On your desk. On our desk. Yes, everyone can see. Where's the camera so I can point it at it in here? That's it. Right there. Okay. Hold it up to the mic and flip through the pages. Let's hear what that book sounds like.

Ooh. Listen to that. Yeah. Ooh. That's nice. This is a book about Siskel and Ebert. I'm pretty serious. Thrilled.

One of my favorite YouTube rabbit holes. When I can't sleep, they're one of my go-tos of just watching random interviews, compilations. They're your end. The best. I went way down that rabbit hole. What was sort of your angle in approaching this book? I just wanted to read it, so I wrote it. That is a great call. It's a great call.

Because I was a huge fan of Siskel and Ebert growing up. That was my ultimate upset. Like, almost more than the movies themselves. I liked the show first, and that was my gateway to liking movies, really. I watched the show and then became interested in the movies they were talking about. But at first, it was almost more the show. They popularized a certain type of film discussion you know or just film discussion on television period i mean yeah really any any significant sense in terms of like a critical sense of like yeah as a means of doing film criticism and they have this complicated legacy of of people who

argue that they kind of like diminish the thing by placing it on tv reducing everything to the thumbs up thumbs down but then you think about the level of like diminish the thing by placing it on TV, reducing everything to the thumbs up, thumbs down. But then you think about the level of like nuanced discourse they were able to fit into very short segments that were not dumbed down. You know, they have to fit five reviews in per episode or whatever. And also the amount of films that they not only boosted, but like made the reputations of single handedly,

you know, films like hoop dreams and dreams by you and all these ones that just like basically were... Dark City. Yep. Were minted by these guys. Either reclaimed by them or sort of...

Dark City was just Ebert. That's just Ebert. But that's okay. But I mean, I just remember that being one of the late, like him making it number one.

And you're like, Ebert made that as number one. Yeah, number one. I guess I should see it. And he did like a commentary track for it. Is that Siskel?

Not a bad movie. Similarly with Bay Pig in the City. Bay Pig in the City, obviously. His final... Was Siskel's final a commentary track for it. That's Siskel. Not a bad movie. Similarly with Bay Pig in the City. Bay Pig in the City, obviously. His final, final try. Was Siskel's final best of movie, yeah. Didn't, Siskel had some great, he had like Crumb one year, right? He had like one false movie.

Like, he's, we don't talk about Siskel enough. We don't, and that was another. Because honestly, Ebert is such a legend. Right, right. For a good reason, you know. Right. And was a better print. Better writer.

Critic. Right, right. He was, yes, he was a better wordsmith. And also he has, which is wonderful, he has his like basically entire archive still lives online where if you want to search, you can type in Roger Ebert Alien 3 and you can read his review. You can watch... Such cool stuff is more decentralized.

It's just hard to find. It's just, there's just not as much available. But like I've always considered him just like when i was a teenager he was like a starter critic for me not that he's not a good critic generally but just like when i watched like laventura and then i read his review and the great movies and i was like this is helping me process something i can barely understand i'm like 15 years old like the perfect uh personality balance between those two guys do you know this matt that when we started this show and it was originally just a star Wars thing,

right? And Ben was like, I think you guys have something here. You should come up with a name. Do more movie stuff. You need a name. You need a name that is more general than the Phantom podcast where we can go from here. And we were like, what? And Ben's top pitch, do you want to say it, Ben? Do you even remember it? I remember it.

Because at one point, our email account was registered under this name. It was Griffle and Simsburg. Which is especially funny given that it's your first name and my last name. But I do think it rolls off the tongue better. I don't think David Burt would have worked. I know. You made the right call.

Is it too late to go in? No. It's never too late. I don't think so 10 year anniversary we're gonna rebrand if we had recordings of those early you know there's some moment where i'm like griffin like i definitely talked it over it wasn't an immediate discard we had no better it was by default the leading candidate yeah i don't hate it but uh god bless siskel and ebert who both left us at this point obviously very excited to read the book uh i'm very excited yeah what is

the format of the book is it just you reviewing every single review they did and you give a thumbs up or thumbs down it's 18 million pages that document that i have on my computer just reprinted no it's um it kind of it's a little bit of a bio of each one, but then it's largely about the making of the show, how they did it, their relationship, a lot of their relationship. Some of the stuff about the criticism of them. Yes. Yeah, how they're dumbing it down. They're dumbing down criticism. Yes.

Yeah. Do you get into Roper? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Do you get into Roper? Yes. There is actually the last chapter.

The last full chapter is the show after Siskel and then after Ebert had to depart as well. There's a whole chapter just on. And I interviewed every single. Michael and Tony. All of the, every co-host. And Christy LeMire. And Ben Lyons and Ben Mangowitz. They're all. You got Lyons in the book? Yes. Didn't Ignati. Ignati. I spoke to Ignati. Yes. Christy Le Lemire. And Lions and Ben Manglitz. You got Lions in the book?

Yes. Didn't Ignati? Ignati, I spoke to Ignati, yes. Christy Lemire, they're all in the book. Did Tony Scott do? Yeah. Tony Scott and Michael Phillips. And Michael Phillips, yes.

So they're all in there. And then the back of the book, the one other thing I would say is the last, I made an appendix called Buried Treasures that Siskel and Ebert loved because the other thing I was a big fan of as a kid was like the Malton Guide, the Ebert Guides. And I just wanted to do something like that. And so, yes, they have movies like Hoop Dreams that they really made. But because I watched every episode, I could find and recorded everything. There was these movies where even me, I'm going, what is this movie that they gave two thumbs up to and sometimes put on a top 10 list and i've never even heard of it and so i took the 25 schindler's list

yeah that was that one was blew my mind so i made about a list so i made like my own almost like a guy like like the 25 movies that are not super well known that they gave two thumbs up to that are really cool and worth checking out. There's like a 90s Barbara Hershey one. I remember watching an interview of them being like just

over the moon about how fucking good it was that I feel like doesn't exist. Hell yeah. Shy people. 87.

I've heard of shy people. Why? They were just like all about shy people. Hershey and Kleberg. Yeah. The big two. Martha Plimpton.

Plimpton. I have, according to my notes here, only Hershey and Klayberg. Yeah. The big two. Martha Plimpton. Plimpton. I have, according to my notes here, only Ebert gave it thumbs up. Interesting. Cisco thumbs down. Okay. On an episode where they also reviewed Switching Channels. Yup. And God Created Women.

It must be a re-release maybe. I'll say that's a very horny review. And The House on Carroll Street. The Roger Verdim movie? Yes. They're like, check out this fucking horny ass Roger Verdim movie from 30 years roger verdin movie yes they're like check out this fucking horny ass roger verdin movie from 30 years ago it was re-released or maybe there's really aggressive but yeah so like look by the way i've been sorry to fact check no no no no no

literally it's uh i think it was more just i guess she had one best actress at con that year and they just talk a lot about how insane that performance is. Final question. Do you touch on the Good Burger review at all? That is my single favorite Siskel and Ebert clip. So that's the one where... I invoke it once a year. You have invoked it before. But it is...

They start arguing over the quality of the movie. Right. Where Ebert doesn't even seemingly really like the movie that much sure but he takes umbrage with the fact that siskel says the characters in the movie are dumb right he's like they run a burger restaurant like how dumb could they be right he's like they fool the bad guy they solve the plot of the movie and siskel says of course they solve the plot of the movie they're the hero of the picture and he goes but you have to take for granted within the text of the film they're smart enough to figure it out.

And they get into this whole thing where like Siskel's like, why are you taking this so seriously? He's like, you have to meet the movie on the ground so that it's like

presenting itself to you. The clip becomes an argument for how you perceive movies. Right. So I don't think that one is in here. I will figure out a way to put it in the next edition.

But- It might be its own chapter. I do. There is chapters about like, how they review movies, and how sometimes like, the reviews become, as you're saying,

become much more about like, the art of talking about a movie, than they are about any specific movie. And what you're looking for, when you critique a film. Yeah. Because they had such different approaches, to these things.

Well, thank you for being here. It's always a pleasure. I'm very excited to read your book. Very enjoyable. Very excited to read your book. Very enjoyable. Very excited to read the book. Very excited. I've enjoyed all your work.

The last couple times there's been... You've also got other books people can read. Yeah, the Spider-Man book you came on last time... That's right. You plugged last time you were on the show. That's right, talking about Spider-Man. The last couple of times there has been a tie-in fast food menu. We have tried to coordinate me going with you for the trip,

and it hasn't worked, and I appreciate that you still send me the invite. There is. There's been a resurgence. They're back. There was the Spider-Verse Whopper. And then what was the one

before that that we were trying to make happen? The Despicable Minions 2 menu? It was like Rise of Gru maybe? It was the Rise of Gru menu at IHOP. The Rise of Gru poison gun. Yeah.

Just like give it to me and they're like you will learn. Just pour it in my mouth. You will be killed by this. Yes. That's fine. We'll make it happen for the next one. We'll have to go to Brazil to try the barbie. Have you seen the barbie?

It looks fucking good. The barbie burger and the barbie shake. Where they just cooked you a barbie? They put another shrimp on the barbie. It's only in Brazil. Apparently. Maybe if we ask hard enough. They'll ship it to us?

They'll just quarantine. They'll bring it over here? They'll just quarantine. They'll bring it over here. I mean, I don't know. I mean, there should be a Turtles menu in August. Like, that feels right. Well, they have, like, frozen pizzas. Yeah. They have their own line. It's not even like, oh, Tombstone is Ninja Turtles

branded. No, no. They did it all themselves. And then, have you seen the thing at the AMC theaters? No. They're, like, there's, like, a special Ninja Turtle slushy oh boy uh icy uh flavor but they're also adding a thing where you can like buy green pop rocks and like mutinize any beverage we should do that and it makes it green and glowing you put it in any other soda it sounds delicious they just have this poster not all the amc theaters it's three different radioactive looking beverage cups you have to go see You put it in any other soda. It sounds delicious. They just have this poster at all the AMC theaters

that's three different radioactive-looking beverage cups. You have to go see Oppenheimer. You have to go see Oppenheimer. At some point, yeah. All right, get out of here. Come on, we're done. Wrap us up.

Get out of here. Come on, we're done. Wrap us up. You can check out Matt's book. There'll be a link to the pre-order in the video description. Yes. Postable Thumbs.

Yeah. Great title. Do you have an audiobook? Are you doing the audiobook? It hasn't been settled yet, but I want to do the audiobook. Shouldn't I do it? You should. Why not?

Let's put our thumb on that scale. Matt should do the audiobook. Thank you for being here, Matt. My pleasure. Thank you all for listening. We're going to have a fun ride ahead of us with Fincher. A fun ride into the depths of how bad humanity is. But all these movies

be good. His main thesis, people are perverts. Look, I'm literally reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy right now. That's how pumped I am for this series. You've been amped. You want to do this one for a while. Finchy. Finchy. We didn't even make any We Love Da Finch Man jokes, but we do love Da Finch Man. I was about to say,

we have great admiration for the man named Fincher. Yes. Tune in next week for... Seven. Seven. Seven. Seven. Se...

Seven. Se... Seven. No, it's just seven. Time on screen is seven. Seven. Thank you to Marie Barty for her social media and helping to produce the show. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show.

Thank you to A.J. McKee and Alex Barron for our editing, J.J. Birch for our research, Leigh Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song, Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some more real nerdy shit, including our Patreon, where right now we are doing the Brosnan Bond movies.

Yeah. Yeah. We are. Well, actually, we just kind of have wrapped up very recently with Ocean's 8. Okay. And then tomorrow is our Alien vs. Predators episode. Oh, that's right. Enjoy that.

And then we're going to get into this. Right. Yes. And then, of course, then we'll be starting, as you said, the Brosnan... Starting the Brosnan Bonds. We'll also be doing the Fincher music video episode, as we said, coming next month, I believe. Correct. October 11th. And also, good time to plug, we, of course, after three years, we take all our Patreon stuff behind the paywall, so you can sign up for a free Patreon membership

where you'll be notified every 10 days when an old episode gets made public, including, I think pretty soon, the Alien franchise commentaries will be coming up a little bit later this year. You are absolutely right. It will begin in October. Yeah, right around this time. That's right. Look at that. Wow.

Synergy. Synergy. Tune in next week for... For another episode of Griffle and Simsburg. I'm saying it's not too late. That is a good title. See?